Fathers. Ugh.
So says Sam as her widowed pops drives her literally across the country from Sam’s beloved Los Angeles to Atlanta.
Sam’s dad thinks L.A.’s a bad influence on his little girl. He believes if she stays there too long, she’s liable to wash out of school and land in prison and have babies out of wedlock and stuff (maybe not in that order). But (thinks Sam) doesn’t he know that L.A. feeds her creative energy? Doesn’t he know that she’d rather sing than go to a dumb ol’ college, anyway? And as for prison, it’s not like she’s ever been arrested. Well, except for that one teensy little misdemeanor, but still.
But Dad doesn’t get it. Now she’s being forced to go to the 21st-century equivalent of a Shakespearian nunnery: her aunt and uncle’s house. And it comes complete, as most nunneries do, with a deeply pious sister.
Not a Catholic nun, mind you. Jessica is just an enthusiastic cousin. But she wants to be like a sister to Sam. Why, when Sam arrives at the house to stay, Jessica points out that their rooms are connected. “Think of this as a canal giving birth to our sister-cousinhood,” she says.
And boy, does the girl love church. When Sunday rolls around, she doesn’t just invite Sam to go: She insists.
“This is Atlanta!” Jessica tells her. “Sunday means church!”
So Sam goes—smirking and rolling her eyes as the church’s much-maligned praise team, The Oil Factory, unveils the number they’re hoping will get them to the national competition this year.
Not that they’ve had a lot of success as a praise team. Last year, their involvement was plagued with uncertain pitch, uninspired choreography, a seriously unwise impromptu dance by one of its members. Their performance was so embarrassing that Jessica fainted dead away in the middle of it. Better to be unconscious than humiliated.
But this year, everyone hopes things will be different.
Sure, Sam says. The praise team may get to heaven someday, but to Nationals? God’s not going to waste a miracle on that.
Right?
Let’s begin this section as we began the review: With Sam’s father. His wife (and Sam’s mother) died not too long ago, and the loss rocked both of their worlds. The loss, though, has knocked Sam off course. Her Dad sees that and takes the difficult, necessary step of separating her from the bad influences in her life.
Jessica’s own parents are both willing and able to give Sam a new home. And they’re not passive landlords, either. When Sam lies and tells them that she’s joined the church’s praise team (using practice as an excuse to go to a party), they’re happy. And when the lie is revealed, her Uncle Larry has a unique punishment in mind.
“Since you lied about joining the praise team, why don’t we make it the truth?” he tells her. And while Sam does indeed see it as a punishment at first, her participation on the praise team becomes a foundational element in the life change she encounters.
Sam receives timely love and guidance from other sectors, too. Jessica is deeply caring and supportive (sometimes to a fault). Other members of the praise team become good friends. The church’s pastor, PG (short for Pastor Goodman), doles out bits of wisdom as the film goes along; and his wife, Natalie, proves to be an unlikely mentor.
We should note that PG’s church—an old, converted warehouse—is all about grace and tolerance. The words “You Belong Here” are painted on the outside, and PG allows the interior to be a skate park when church isn’t in session (introducing some unchurched skateboarders to at least the interior of a church, keeping them off the street and out of trouble).
This movie is about Sam—but it’s about God, church and praise music, too. It’d be impossible to detail every blink and nod we get referencing faith, but here’s a taste.
“I don’t do church,” Sam says. Since her mom died, she’s had no real relationship with God (even though her mother was very religious). But she does have a talent for rhyming and recasting secular songs as spiritual ones.
She shows off this talent at a nightclub/bowling alley, taking some popular songs and changing their direction. She gets a bit misty singing one of them and cuts off the song abruptly—realizing that the words actually meant something to her. Sam also spends time with a bestselling musician/writer: She takes one of his most famous works (which he says is about “getting high and having sex in my Lambo”) and turns it into a praise song.
“You believe that for real?” the artist, Ty, asks.
“Believe what?” Sam asks.
We hear plenty of praise music throughout the movie, of course. The lyrics can be hard to follow amid all the background music and (sometimes sultry) choreography that goes along with them; but many songs express some nice thoughts about our relationship with God. Others can carry a bit of a prosperity Gospel message with them—sometimes satirically so. (The Oil Factory’s main rival group performs a number where money falls from the sky and the lead singer shoots fake dollar bills into the audience.)
Jessica is the movie’s most enthusiastic follower of Christ, and that enthusiasm is sometimes leveraged for a bit of gentle humor. Others poke fun at faith itself: When the nightclub DJ challenges Sam to turn secular songs spiritual, for instance, he suggests turning some water into wine because his own cup is getting a little low on alcohol.
Some puns show up here and there, too: Jessica totes along a bag of coffee in her car labeled “Father, Son and Holy Roast,” for instance, and a rival praise team is called “The Prodigal Sons.” (They feel almost like a boy band, and both Sam and Jessica swoon as they sing.)
But the film offers plenty of moments reflecting a sincere belief in Christ and His ability to change lives. And when Sam whines that God’s never answered her most important prayers, Jessica reminds her, “He’s God, not Santa Claus.”
PG hides plenty of tattoos underneath his clothes—something that an older, more traditional local pastor doesn’t approve of. He tells the pastor that before he wasn’t a Christian, “I put my whole life story on the outside. But God in His grace covered up some of the chapters.”
We hear something of how PG came to Christ later in the movie—which involved, much like Sam, some forced church attendance.
Sam wears some tight, provocative outfits, especially early on. (“Body positivity,” Jessica says when she sees one of her midriff-baring getups. “I like it.”) She tells famous musician Ty that she’d do “anything” to work with him, and Ty immediately (albeit temporarily) loses interest in working with her. “I don’t want to deal with people who’ll do anything,” he tells her. “If you don’t believe in yourself, you’ll do some desperate s—.”
Both Jessica and Sam swoon over various guys. Sam is drawn to Aaron, aka “Big Love,” who’s a part of the praise team. When Sam says he’s got something, Jessica says that it’s “definitely the Holy Spirit.” (Sam disagrees.) Early in the movie, during competition, Big Love seems to perform simulated sex on stage to make a spiritual point. He’s roundly booed, and PG cautions him that this year he shouldn’t do any “juicy metaphors.” Some of the choreography from the praise teams can be pretty sensual anyway, and Jessica chides a member of another team for “twerking for Jesus.”
Another rival group is called the Promise Ringtones—a group that claims their musical energy comes from their chastity. When the group’s leader is caught on a “sex tape,” the group’s church disqualifies them. (PG says that’s “old church thinking,” suggesting that he would’ve forgiven the leader and allowed the group to still compete.)
We hear a bevy of other sexually related jokes and references, too. One woman in the praise competition audience, for instance, discusses how tight a male singer’s pants are, telling her friend that “I can see his disciples.” Jessica hides a picture of a man in a thong behind a stack of cat paintings. As Jessica’s parents make dinner, they seem to be engaged in some light foreplay—and both are quite happy to hear that Sam and Jessica will be out of the house that evening.
[Spoiler Warning] Late in the movie, Sam makes a string of confessions, including the fact that it’s only by the grace of God that she wasn’t also caught on video engaged in sex, or that she never got pregnant, given how sexually promiscuous she was.
A character slashes her tires repeatedly to draw the attention of a guy she has a crush on.
Eight s-words (including a couple of uses discussing what was likely in the stable where Jesus was born) and several other profanities, including “a–,” “d–n” and “h—.” God’s name is misused twice—though in fairness, many of the main characters use the substitute “gosh” far more frequently.
One other note: Some song lyrics have lyrics that can sound a lot like the f-word, though given the context, it seems unlikely.
We hear that Aaron used to be a marijuana dealer before he (in Jessica’s words) “suddenly and mysteriously gave his life to the Lord.” He hasn’t quit his side business, though, and he has an uncomfortable run-in with one of his customers while his pastor stands nearby. (He later confesses that he’s still selling—though no one he confesses to is surprised in the least.)
Jessica and Sam attend a party thrown by Ty. Both are underage, but they accept a pair of shots: Sam drinks hers down while Jessica secretly chucks hers into a nearby plant. The two also dance together at the party, with Jessica obliviously fending off all male suitors who seem interested in Sam. When one seems to offer Sam a marijuana joint, Jessica cheerfully knocks it away.
Sam goes into a lounge and orders a rum and Coke, using a fake ID. The bartender seems to accept it, but he apparently serves her a Coke without alcohol, much to Sam’s disgust.
Jessica’s parents drink wine as they make dinner.
Sam and Jessica lie both to leave the house and to get into a party. (They’re punished for the first, but the second works out pretty well.) The Oil Factory is the victim of a betrayal. We learn that PG stole a car in his youth.
“I don’t really have a relationship with God,” Sam tells Natalie, the gospel-singing wife of pastor PG. “I just know how to rhyme.”
“Well, obviously, God has a relationship with you,” Natalie says with a smile.
That’s the intended message of Praise This: a movie about how God might be working in your life, even when you don’t see it and sometimes, even when you don’t want Him to.
As Sam gets more invested with the praise team, she begins to look beyond the beauty of her own voice (which, belonging to singer and actress Chloe Bailey, is formidable) to see the beauty of the words she makes up on the fly—words that speak of sinners brought into the arms of Jesus, the hopeless given hope.
“Every saint was a sinner,” at one time, she sings. And we all know it’s true. Jesus tells us so. Whoever is without sin throw the first stone, he tells a bunch of men ready to stone a prostitute. And, of course, they all walk away.
But the Bible doesn’t end there, of course. Jesus turns to the prostitute and tells her Go and sin no more.
And that’s where Praise This becomes less praiseworthy.
We see evidence of lives changed … sort of. A famous musical artist pushes away a drink when listening to a praise tune—almost horrified that he almost drank during such a sanctified song. A DJ announces he’s quitting drinking after hearing a series of praise songs—then takes another quick sip.
It’s meant to be a joke, of course—playing on that tension between the secular and sacred I think we all feel. Spiritually, we know that God forgives our sins—and forgives them repeatedly. But what does that mean? Shouldn’t our lives be transformed through that grace?
We see a lot of bad behavior in Praise This, and much of it is laughed off or even ignored. And while the movie effectively reminds us that God’s grace can cover all sins, it might unintentionally convey a sense that sin just doesn’t matter that much.
And as beautiful as the music can be in Praise This, that sour note can’t be ignored.
Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.
