Redeeming Love: A Review & Analysis
Genre: Christian romance
Release Year: 2022
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Director: D.J. Caruso
Content Warnings: rape, murder, sexual abuse, incest, suicide, abortions, and sexual content
Personal Rating: R
Read Parental Reviews: https://www.commonsensemedia.org/movie-reviews/redeeming-love/user-reviews/adult
This review contains spoilers.
Redeeming Love might be one of the most controversial Christian releases in a long time. This Biblically inspired spin on the story of the prophet Hosea and his unfaithful wife, Gomer, receives a secular treatment hammered with intermittent beats of worldview—and the result is unappealing for many.
Christians loathe it for its intimate scenes and heavy subject matter, and people outside the faith dislike its overt—albeit occasional—religiosity. However, my take is a bit more nuanced.
First Order of Business…
It is crucial to establish what Christianity calls its people to do out the gate and how it asks them to be. Understanding this will set the tone for how I will analyze this 2022 Christian romance film and where I believe it succeeded and failed within the genre.
To the uninitiated, Christians seem incapable of enjoying secular or "normal" entertainment. Indeed, many Christians emphasize consuming content that is strictly edifying, even "pure," instead of occasionally dabbling in other media. Christianity's expectations of preserving one's mind and heart from corrupting influences are crucial to how believers view the world and its various creations.
I will not condemn anyone for refusing to view content that tempts them into vices or emotionally and spiritually disturbs them. Everyone has different tolerance thresholds; to mock someone for preferring to stick with wholesome media is to lack empathy for their particularity. Additionally, the duality of good and evil—all-too-present realities in the world—colors our entertainment. Anything that strives to tell a story or provoke emotion and thought is shaded in hues of good and bad, dark and light, and beneficial and detrimental. In short, not everything we put into our minds should be there.
Further complications arise when creating content within the Christian genre. Christians have expectations and boundaries that must be respected, or the genre, by its form and values, is corrupted. For example, celebrating murder or vulgarity in a Christian story rather than exploring it in a cautionary setting breaks the genre. It cannot be done, much like a fantasy story cannot take place in an ordinary world with a plot and an entire cast of characters that are normal (i.e., not fantastical). Then it is just not fantasy.
The Christian genre emphasizes Christ's qualities; if its media fails to show this, then it, by definition, is no longer a fully-functioning piece of Christian entertainment. If a fantasy story fails to abide by commonly established fantasy tropes, it, too, does not live up to the genre - and best believe the genre's fans will be upset about it.
And they have a right to be, don't they? You are likely to feel burned when you don't receive the product you expected.
What, then, are some of the stipulations within the Christian genre? If this entertainment is created to be spiritually uplifting and generally family-friendly, what are some specific lines you ought not to cross?
Here are some content guidelines for Christian entertainment:
*No cursing or vulgar language
*No graphic violence
*No magic, witchcraft, or occultism
*No demons or devils
*No nudity or sexual content
Many non-Christians may disagree with keeping the above items absent from media. After all, we live in an age where more gritty and realistic content—sometimes to the point of brutality—is appreciated. I understand why this is the case. The world has become an increasingly unstable place to live, affecting how people view each other and themselves. Films with explicit themes may be comforting or fascinating to us because it almost feels validating to see someone else's terrifying story—regardless of whether it's factual or fictional—play out onscreen.
Indeed, there is great value in exploring and/or exposing serious struggles and problems through a fictional lens. There is a therapeutic element there, and it is also a safer method of understanding heavy topics for those who want to comprehend them better. Additionally, with our media having become increasingly violent, sexual, and rooted in real-world issues, some desensitization has occurred. We are no longer as emotionally stirred or affected by things as we once were; this requires filmmakers and showrunners to come up with darker and more shocking subject matter to get a rise out of the audience and make a lasting impression.
Think of shows like Dexter and Game of Thrones. They are R-rated for a reason. Most adult shows nowadays are; this is driven by what the consumers want—which is impacted by what they've already seen.
This all brings us neatly back to Redeeming Love, a film I hadn't had the opportunity to watch until recently. Is it any good? Is it truly the soft-core Christian porn film it is touted to be by its faith-based audience? Who is it even for, and could this have impacted its conception and reception?
Let's start dissecting this "problematic" piece of cinema, beginning with the story.
The Plot
Redeeming Love is based on the bestselling novel by Francine Rivers. It takes place during the California Gold Rush and centers on a young prostitute named Angel, the most desirable night lady in town. Accustomed to being used, Angel is taken aback when a farmer named Michael Hosea purchases her service time and uses it to simply... talk to her. And treat her as a woman with dignity rather than an object.
Michael believes Angel is the woman God has asked him to marry, and he is willing and ready to accept her baggage, make her his wife, and take her home with him. The problem is that Angel is too involved in her lifestyle to surrender it for love's sake, assuming she believes in love at all.
As her history unfolds in traumatic flashbacks, the audience learns of Angel's origin story and discovers that she is the illegitimate child of a married man. Sold into prostitution at a young age, Angel's perceptions of men, her mother's Catholic faith, and life are permanently tarnished. Michael Hosea, however, is not willing to surrender her so easily.
He convinces Angel to marry him and come home with him after she is badly beaten by one of her brothel's minions. Michael does not "exercise their conjugal rights," as Angel puts it, but focuses on restoring her to health and looking after her. Angel, uncertain whether he's trustworthy, flees Michael's home, but she returns when he convinces her to.
Later, she runs again when she develops feelings for Michael but realizes he wants to have children. Angel believes herself to be sterile. This time, her fleeing leads her back to the city, where she resumes prostitution. Michael faithfully comes to find her again and brings her home with him, where she will then run once more. Her third escape fosters her inner revival as she takes up a job at a cafe using the cooking skills she gained from Michael, exposing her pedophilic former brothel owner and aiding other young prostitutes in escaping and reforming their lives.
The film concludes three years later with Michael, who never stopped loving Angel, reuniting with her and exemplifying the movie's title.
The Problem
At a glance, Redeeming Love sounds like an authentic and spiritually-grounded faith tale that boldly ventures into disturbing subject matter to deliver the sharpest story possible. In some ways, it does excel in its intentions.
Nevertheless, Redeeming Love is not without faults—many of them.
I will set aside content issues for now. Rather than content, I will address context problems that sullied the original message in the source material. As aforementioned, Redeeming Love is based on the story of the prophet Hosea from the book of the same name in the Bible and his adulterous wife, Gomer. In the book of Hosea, the prophet is told, by God, to "take himself an adulterous wife." This is Gomer.
As a disclaimer, it is not entirely known whether Gomer was a prostitute or simply an unfaithful woman. Although prostitution is a business propped upon sexual sin, its nature is more sinister in that its practitioners are often slaves or women who feel they have no better alternatives. According to my reading of the text (see here), Gomer was more or less a lass who had many lovers and did not know or care for her purity. It is also important to note that during this time, Israel, for which Gomer is a metaphor, was embedded in sin of all sorts, including prostitution and adultery. Baal worship encouraged this.
Therefore, it is unclear whether Gomer was a lady for hire or simply enjoyed the company of many men. Regardless of whether her actions were for profit or pleasure, she was not obligated to this lifestyle. Instead, she deliberately chose it because she found it more appealing than being a wife. Otherwise, I do not know why she would have surrendered her husband and three children to continue pursuing that lifestyle. Prostitution is hardly glamorous.
Additionally, God uses Gomer as a symbol of Israel's spiritual promiscuity with other gods. I do not see how Gomer was victimized in this story, apart from self-inflicted pain. If she was someone to pity, I believe the book of Hosea and God's language surrounding her and Israel would have reflected this. Instead, God is accusing Israel of intentionally sinning against Him—which is what Gomer does to Hosea, bringing him much grief.
How does this contrast with Redeeming Love and its Gomer-esque lead, Angel? It contrasts quite a lot.
The Difference
Redeeming Love is ultimately a story about finding redemption in the midst of horrific circumstances and shameful pasts. It is a love story that emphasizes one woman's escape from a destructive lifestyle as she connects with God and a patient man who has chosen to treasure her despite her baggage. Redeeming Love asks the audience to empathize with Gomer—the book of Hosea asks us to be wary of being like Gomer. This is evident in Angel's situation in the film. Instead of being a wayward woman who has elected to pursue her own passions and desires, she is, in reality, a sex slave.
This major contextual misunderstanding immediately sets the stage for Redeeming Love to miss the mark. Angel is a battered, traumatized young woman. Gomer is a promiscuous woman who prefers to live selfishly. Angel fears she will never be loved and runs away from Michael out of desperation. Gomer abandons her husband because she feels she has better things to do, which involve sexual activity.
See how the “parallels” don't quite match?
Redeeming Love is about feeling moved for the female lead, who is trapped in a tragic situation, but God makes His message about Gomer in the book of Hosea very clear: she is not a woman to feel sorry for. She is a woman to avoid being like, both literally and figuratively, and she is an example of humanity's choices to abandon their Creator for lesser things.
Too Different To Be Redeemed?
Some viewers may not take issue with the adjusted storyline in Redeeming Love. Many argue that the core message is still there, that choosing to love people with baggage and certain inclinations is one of the highest forms of exemplifying divinity people can achieve. However, Redeeming Love is too divorced from the concept of forgiving sin and too focused on nurturing broken people to accurately represent Hosea's story. Redeeming Love erroneously paints Gomer as the victim when she does not seem to be someone for whom either God or Hosea felt sorry. The victim in Hosea is not Gomer—they are God, Hosea, and Gomer's children, whom she abandoned.
With this in mind, the house of cards that is Redeeming Love begins to collapse. A re-imagining that fails to capture the heart of its source material—especially a Bible story—is difficult to endorse. Francine Rivers has romanticized and sensationalized a story to make it more attractive and acceptable to modern audiences. However, in so doing, she has corrupted and neglected what made Hosea important in the first place. This is ignorant, at least, and misleading, at worst.
Not All Is Lost...
Now that the contextual issues have been addressed, I do have a few kind words for Redeeming Love. This praise is unfortunately limited by the flaws, but if viewers watch the film mentally detached from its Biblical roots, it regains some of its power.
My first commendation is for this film's willingness to confront the troubling topics of prostitution and pedophilia. Redeeming Love stabs at the heart of prostitution's roots in human trafficking and child sex slavery, and for this, I must give it some praise. Again, this focus crumbles the intended message behind Hosea and Gomer, but it is powerfully done on its own.
Angel's apathy, misery, and quiet suffering in the film are potent. The way she comes to understand the horrors and futility of her lifestyle is emotionally evocative and sumptuous; I love how she is a character with whom one can easily empathize. It is nigh impossible not to root for a girl like Angel, especially given her situation. She is a well-humanized and fully-realized female lead who acts as I expect most women in her position would act. There weren't many jarring surprises between her circumstances and attitude, and she was mercifully not portrayed as an insufferable contemporary "girl boss." That will always win my appreciation.
Redeeming Love excels at crafting a grounded, believable love story blended with period drama and historical fiction elements. However…
It Is Not An Easy Watch
It does this a little too well.
I appreciate some realism in my media. Unfortunately, Redeeming Love is so steeped in its horrors that it becomes bitter and difficult to watch. Abuse, rape, incest, and other exceptionally dark events permeate the entire film. This content, while not completely deterring for dark fiction creators like myself, is recognizably excessive. Christians and non-Christians will likely take issue with this. It is not a light-hearted story, and the darkness tends to overpower the plot.
For Christian media, this film completely overdoes the darkness. Redeeming Love does not belong in the Christian genre as it is currently defined because the ugliness is so present. This was challenging for me, so it will probably be hard to stomach for others. However, if you’re not bothered by extreme suffering, well… here you go.
I would not recommend this film for families or children. It isn’t something that, if you do watch it, you’ll want to view more than once. I suggest watching it earlier in the day or consuming more wholesome entertainment—perhaps the actual Bible story—after viewing to “reset” from the content. It is upsetting and may depress viewers, especially Christians who are more sensitive to horrific subject matter.
Provocative Content
Secular people are going to view this topic much differently from Christians. We must remember, though, that Redeeming Love is promoted as a Christian romance. Because I am evaluating it based on personal opinion and objectivity regarding the Christian genre, this needs discussing.
Redeeming Love has entirely too much sexual content for a Christian film. That is not my opinion—this is a fact that acknowledges the limitations of the genre. Christian entertainment does not contain anything explicitly sexual. When a creator flies too close to the sun on the topic and their work does feature this, rest assured that they get burned. Badly.
And the work they produced promptly tumbles from grace.
Redeeming Love features multiple sex scenes between Michael and Angel, who, while entirely within their rights to intimacy as a married couple, should not be shown doing this onscreen. There's just no good reason for it. Not only do the scenes exist, but they linger and revel. They are not brief clips or occasional flashes of things happening, but near-complete scenes of Gomer—excuse me, Angel—having a good time and making all the sounds and motions that go with it.
Again, secular viewers aren't going to care about this one. They may be more inclined to tease Christians for being "prudish" on this topic, but I would ask them to seriously consider and respect why Christians label this as a no-no.
Sexual feelings are natural and will occur in everyone with a functioning reproductive system. This is a fact of life and not something that will ever be absent from any species that uses procreation to survive. The problem is that giving oneself freely to anyone who is not a spouse often breeds problems. What problems?
Pair bonding, the science behind human connection in physical intimacy, is disrupted. Pair bonding is our brain's way of "linking" people to their sexual partners, which explains the intense affection, attachment, and sometimes obsession that forms between lovers, especially women toward men. Too many partners erode the pair bonding ability and make sexual experiences gradually lesser, cheaper, and less emotionally effective. This is just one reason why Christianity urges Christians to abstain from sex until marriage, a relationship that is supposed to be a lifelong partnership and dedication.
Of course, there are other issues: STDs, unplanned pregnancies, relationship complications, etc. However, dealing with these issues outside of the commitment of a loving union is statistically - and personally, as it relates to my upbringing - especially damaging.
Thus, I cannot and will not endorse Redeeming Love as something that ought to be viewed by Christians. It's not ideal for anyone to see, but if you struggle with purity, you will especially want to skip this one.
Final Verdict:
Redeeming Love is an unfaithful Christian romance that recklessly strays outside the genre. It has some genuinely wonderful and heart-rending moments with powerful characters - but these elements are too clouded in sexuality and too distorting of the source material to make it worthwhile. If you want to watch the film mentally divorced from its concept as a Biblical "retelling"—and you don't struggle with purity/are willing to skip spicy scenes—you may enjoy it as a general romance story. Otherwise, it's not worth your time.
Rating: ⭐⭐
(For misrepresenting the Bible story and attempting to create a "steamy" Christian romance.)
