I Can Only Imagine

[A] slickly assembled tale of redemption and reconciliation.

Art can be affirmation, but affirmation cannot be art.

The movie works for the same reason the song does: It lightens the burden of the pain people are shouldering today, and gives them something to look forward to.

This is an interesting idea, executed with a reductive, tin-eared understanding of what constitutes art to go along with a faith-based movie's reductive, tin-eared understanding of what constitutes entertainment.

Like so many faith-based efforts, I Can Only Imagine suffers from a terminal case of self-importance.

Why is the movie made from a universally healing single such an earnest, awkward dud? Well, partly because the movie can't settle on what's more important, the family stuff or the ascension of the song as a fame-inducing anthem.

Fortunately, this trend in faith-based filmmaking seems to be shifting to a more real, lived faith. I Can Only Imagine is a good example of this shift...

An inspirational drama that, unlike most faith-based endeavors, at least looks like a real movie rather than something even Ed Wood would have rejected.

This is exactly what a faith-based film should be.

Thankfully, I Can Only Imagine doesn't feel like a Sunday school lesson, but it never manages to escape its sense of banal familiarity.