Sarah Caine (Lisa Pepper) is a newspaper columnist whose career is in a rough patch – her work lacks inspiration, and she is barely syndicated anymore (only two newspapers still carry her). But perhaps her muse is soon to be revived. Her Amish sister dies, leaving her children in Sarah’s care. Cue the culture shock as Sarah travels from the Big Smoke (well… Portland, anyway) to the Amish community, and then again as the children come back with her.
The warning signs arrive with the opening credits. The film is a co-production of Believe Pictures and Redemption Films. Uh-oh. The very names of the studios indicated that actual filmmaking is going to take a back seat to proselytizing, and sure enough, that’s what follows. Performances and script are strictly at the level of community theatre. What poor Elliott Gould is doing here (as Sarah’s editor) is anybody’s guess. He does his best to make his lines sound less stale than they are. Here’s hoping he was paid well.
Audio
The film bends over backward in its concerted attempt to be inoffensive (and thus it doesn’t worry about being bland and boring), and the audio is rather in line with this strategy. There’s nothing wrong with it – the sound is crisp and clear, and the dialogue never distorts. But it’s not terribly exciting, either. There are some decent environmental effects, but music is primarily what you’ll be hearing get the surround treatment.
Video
And the picture is more of the same. The colours are good, naturalistic, but rather bland. The image is a little bit soft, but is free of grain and edge enhancement. In essence, then, the transfer is free of problems. It’s just that the cinematography itself is deeply uninteresting.
Special Features
There are four deleted scenes and a standard-issue behind-the-scenes featurette. There are also trailers for more delights of this sort, it this is this sort of thing you like.
Closing Thoughts
A perfectly competent DVD. A perfectly dull film with ghastly script and performances.
