October Baby

This weekend I had the privilege of seeing the movie October Baby. The film, which is a small film with a budget around a million dollars. The film deals with the concepts of a failed abortion, adoption, families, forgiveness, pain, understanding our place in the world, etc.

It has all the feels of a coming-of-age drama, a tinge of Nicholas Sparks, and the life-is-a-journey road trip message.

The film which is clearly marketed towards to Christian's (Evangelical Protestants and Conservative Catholics) isn't overly religious in nature, but obviously deals with a social issue that is highly politicized.

That being said, politicized issues rarely appear in films, so there's no reason to critic a film like this for presenting a message, especially when it does so with sensitivity, working the story from a number of angles (the failed abortion survivor, the birth-mother, adopting parents, the nurse who administered the procedure, and friends and frenemies in the mix).

I loved the fact that American Idol alumni Chris Sligh is in the film and his music makes the bulk of the soundtrack (although sometimes appears in overly sentimentalized spots). But truly the great performances in the film are in the cameo performances by veteran Jasmine Guy and relative-newcomer Shari Weidman, and the lead performance by Rachel Hendrix.

The film is well produced for it's budget, the story is good, although could have benefitted from a script tightening.