Religious films have rightfully earned a bad rap over the years, for a good number of them have unfortunately forgotten that a good film allows its audience to think independently and not shamelessly hammer its message into their heads. I’m looking right at you, “God’s Not Dead”.
Of course, not all films with religious themes are irredeemably bad; Prince of Egypt was beautifully animated and its characters were portrayed as actual people with believable personalities and understandable motivations rather than generic archetypes.
However, the club to which these legitimately good religious films belong to is an exclusive one, and Breakthrough will quite unfortunately have to spend the night elsewhere.
Breakthrough is based on an actual incident in 2015 when Joyce Smith of Wisconsin, US somehow managed to pray her son, John, back to life after he drowned in a frozen lake and was without a pulse for over 45 minutes.
By the very nature of this film, one can expect to deal with the themes of unquestioning faith and the power of prayer.
However, the problem arises when the film does not delve any deeper than that and very questionably, brings up an important theological question at the very end of the film only to nonchalantly shrug it off.
Perhaps to be less harsh on Roxann Dawson’s first cinematic outing, it would be better to start listing its strong points.
Firstly, the music director, Marcelo Zarvos, does an acceptable job in crafting the score for Breakthrough and the soundtrack blended well with the overall tone of the film. Perhaps churches could also find a new hymn for Sunday service in Dianne Warren’s “I’m Standing with You”.
Then, there is Chrissy Metz, whom Malaysian Netflix users might have seen on “This is Us”, who plays the aforementioned Joyce. She carries her role well-enough as a traditionalist but devout and fiercely loving mother who has some trouble connecting with her adopted son.
She has the charisma to make her character believable and whenever she expresses her faith in God through prayer, you can tell she sincerely believes what she is saying.
However, the film’s fundamental flaw is that the very premise of the film guarantees the lack of suspense as it is made clear from the start that it will be a feel-good movie.
In the place of suspense, the film could have instead used as its centrepiece the internal conflicts within the characters themselves as they undergo a difficult time.
Spiritual doubt and crises of faith are real-world occurrences that people of faith deal with regularly, and exploring them would have added to the overall depth of the film.
Instead, the film decides to put its focus purely on unquestioning faith and to ask its audience to believe in the power of prayer in bringing about miracles. The film is thus made extremely simple and straightforward with nothing else to be expected of it.
The worst offence of the movie comes at the worst possible time: the conclusion. The film brings forward a very important theological question: “Why does God answer some prayers but not others?”
This question is one that can warrant hours of theological discussions but the credits roll before a satisfactory answer is given. And thus, a golden opportunity for greater meaning within the movie disappears into thin air.
Why bring it up in the first place then? If the film was willing to prompt such a thought-provoking question, then it should have the courage to offer its own take on the quandary.
When it comes to its technical aspect, Breakthrough performs perfectly well but when it comes to its story, the film may encounter problems reaching out to non-believers because of its shallow narrative.