Pureflix film adds hype to the Christian movie industry
“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing…But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense…The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of … You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.” -C.S Lewis
Birmingham Alabama goes down in infamy as a place of racial injustice, violence and tragedy. The bombing of the 16th street Baptist church in 1963 forever deemed this southern town as an epicenter of prejudice and pain.
The 2015 Pureflix film, Woodlawn, however paints a more positive picture of the moral and courage of Birmingham residents in the year 1973.
Woodlawn tells the true story of Tony Nathan (Caleb Castille) a gifted young African American man in the wake of the government mandate to desegregate schools. There arose great dissent between the black and white members of the community as riots, acts of violence and a general demeanor of skeptical fear takes presidencies over day to day life in Birmingham.
No where were these problems so evident than in Nathan’s football team. The boys (already struggling with competition and jealousy between themselves) became divided over lines of race regardless of talent or moral. Coach Tandy Gerelds (Nic Bishop) failed time and time again to unite the team and resorted to race based allotment of positions and time on the field.
The film portrayed these elements with realism and built them into the words and actions of each character, in order to represent the times with clarity. The period felt very pronounced and sucked the viewer into a different era in America’s history.
When sports pastor Hank (Sean Astin) arrived to talk to the team he faced significant opposition. However a single hour speech from Hank resulted in the convert of over 40 players (nearly all of the team) and a revival among the whole group. The boys knew that in order to overcome the hardships of the season they needed reliance upon Jesus Christ and a love for one another that transcended color.
The team not only began to win games (becoming the second best team in their league) but began to influence their community as well. This movie provided a strong reminder of Christianity’s ability to unite diverse groups of people in a single community under God. Winning football games was not the main objective of this story rather breaking the bonds of race and class in a violence fueled society.
In addition, this film touched upon the unique objective and purposes of God. The community viewed Nathan as a nobody, as an invisible and unimportant part of society. Yet much like the shepherd boy David of the Bible, God saw Nathan as a tool to accomplish a greater purpose. God truly took the “simple” characters of this movie to bring about monumental change in the world. –Skyler Lee
In addition, this film touched upon the unique objective and purposes of God. The community viewed Nathan as a nobody, as an invisible and unimportant part of society. Yet much like the shepherd boy David of the Bible, God saw Nathan as a tool to accomplish a greater purpose. God truly took the “simple” characters of this movie to bring about monumental change in the world.
The structure and quality of Woodlawn far surpassed my expectations. Though I respect the message communicated by Christian movies, there often exists a degree of corniness or poor acting. This results from low budgets and is an understandable and excusable common factor of such films. However Woodlawn avoided cliché’s and kept awkward and unrealistic moments down to a minimum. Other than a few stereotypical music choices the movie maintained a firm atmosphere throughout.
The team went on to become highly successful and though they did not win the championship, they brought healing and closure to a community riddled with pain.
The response of the audience appeared mainly positive. Woodlawn seems to have created a significant hype in Fresno’s Christian community with various churches, teams and individuals coming to the meet and greet premier, Oct. 17. The film made $1.5 million over studio expectations and finished 9th in the box office.
Alexis Kalugin, ’16, and I are very thankful towards those running the premier booth for giving us free tickets and brightening our day with their kindness.
In all, Woodlawn conquered the struggles of race and bitterness with the all encompassing love of Christ. The film contained fast paced football scenes and the battle of an underdog team but remained grounded in a message far deeper than sports. Pureflix made Woodlawn to inspire and captivate an audience removed from the story by more than forty years.
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For another movie review, read ‘The Martian’ brings intensity to the space world.
This writer can be reached via Twitter: @SkylerSKL and via email: Skyler Lee.
