BodEquip Ministries - Equipping the Body of Christ to Live Abundantly.

Movie Review: October Baby

Quick Plot Summary: An emotional journey of self-discovery as a young college-age woman comes to grips with the fact that she was adopted after a failed abortion attempt.

Rating: Great
Suggested Ages: 14+

Let me be honest: When I first read about the plot for this movie, I wasn't overly thrilled. I don't know what I was expecting, but this movie definitely blew away any pre-conceived notions. It is entertaining, emotional, relatable, and just generally a joy to watch. It draws you in on an emotional journey that the main character makes and you feel like you're making it right along with her. Among other things, this is a tribute to the reasonably high film-making quality and acting.

This movie (along with the movie Bella) is a great pro-life movie, but it's also just plain a good movie.

That isn't to say that there aren't some scenes that feel out of place, rushed, or downright odd, because there are. And there are a few scenes that I even felt were written poorly and I wished would have been majorly changed. There are also some plot-twists and developments that I didn't care for. But the movie as a whole is an engaging and very encouraging movie that really shows that all life is beautiful. And by the way, it was inspired by a true story. Make no mistake: this movie preaches to you about abortion, although it generally does it in a more roundabout way, rather than directly at you. But honestly, this movie isn't really so much about the issue of abortion itself as it is a celebration of life and moving forward from your past.

On some level, we all have to come to grips with our pasts and how those pasts play into our present. I think many people, even without any connection with abortion in their past, will find that this movie is quite meaningful and has some great things to say. I can definitely see this film being used by God to help bring healing from past regrets.

Make sure you watch the end credits as you'll get a very interesting surprise, which really ratchets up the effectiveness of the movie to a whole other level.

Due to its themes, this is a movie best-geared for adults, though mid-to-late teens can probably get some things out of it also. However, while this is a pretty "clean" movie with no cussing and so forth, if shown to teens, I think good follow-up discussion about the way some of the other college-age characters acted in the movie is warranted (including them wanting to go to Mardis Gras for Spring Break, etc.). Also, the main character in the movie questions the normalcy of her being a virgin, which in itself didn't bother me, but the film raised the issue, but then never resolved it and in fact completely cut-it-off (literally had the character stop the conversation), and actually the way it was portrayed almost made it seem as though it WAS silly that she was a virgin, which I'm pretty sure is not the message that was wanted to be portrayed by the filmmakers. So follow-up discussion regarding that is worthwhile also. Another key discussion point could be about identity, which was a centerpiece of much of this movie - discussion about how our identity as Christians is to be found in Christ, not in our past, I think would be very worthwhile.

Okay, finally, a specific gripe that is also a bit of a spoiler so you can stop reading now if you haven't seen the film yet. This film has a male lifelong best friend that sticks with the main female character through everything which was neat to see. Even better, he truly didn't know what to say or even say the right things sometimes, but that made it SO much more believable because the filmmakers didn't try to make him be anything other than a college-age guy who was trying to be a support as best he knew how. They showed him as a caring, sweet, but somewhat clueless guy when it came to really processing and dealing with the intensity of emotions that his friend was going through. And that just really helped the realism in my opinion. I thought the whole best-friend component to the movie was really good, but that's also why I got very frustrated with the movie towards the end, for two different reasons. First, the father ends up forbidding his daughter from seeing her best friend ever again and the movie just showed her accepting that without any argument. Really? Her lifelong best friend has just been with her through thick and thin on this deeply emotional journey and she doesn't even backtalk to her dad once about not ever being able to see her lifelong best friend again??? Oh that frustrated me something fierce. I'm a big supporter of obeying your parents, but this girl, who was college-age, had also had her past hidden to her by her parents and her dad's behavior in the moment wasn't right. I WANTED to see a bit of a blow-out scene at that time where she really honestly expressed how she felt about that to him - I thought that was a scene that needed to be had both for her and for him - one that would ultimately help to bring about the necessary healing. Instead, that moment never happened in the movie. For the audience, that emotional release was very much needed, but it wasn't provided to us. There needed to be an honest, emotionally-intense (yet respectful) confrontation moment with her parents, and that never happened. Instead, we got this implausable "she just went back and quietly submitted to her parents" thing which felt phoney and didn't satisfy one bit. The other "best friend" plot twist I didn't care for is that the movie took him beyond just being a best friend into a romantic thing, whereas I think this movie would have been much better served by just keeping the guy as a really good, sweet, lifelong friend. The whole romantic "beneath the surface" thing, which ultimately became front-and-center, I thought really was a bit much - and a bit formulaic, and feel that emotionally the film would have been more satisfying if they had just portrayed him/kept him as a guy who deeply cared for his friend and didn't hint that part of his motivation was because he was secretly in love with her.

Again, despite some gripes, overall this movie is a worthwhile watch.

Reviewed by Christopher Long,
BodEquip Ministries

[Home]    [Books]    [Articles]    [Music]    [Movies]    [Donate]    [About]    [Contact]