S Brooks

This movie positions itself to be a feel-good comedy about a ne'er do well who is given an option to have his debts cleared if he moves to a small town in Nova Scotia. Unbeknownst to him, he is a decedent of healers, and if he chooses he can carry on the family tradition. The film abuses musical queues, the plot is meandering, and every supporting character is extremely intrusive and aggressive (in attempts to sound the film's message until it is deafening). Essentially, this film posits a scenario in which a man, who believes he has no living family, learns that he has an uncle he's never heard of, a magic power, and is duty-bound to heal hoards of strangers. He is not prepped for this news. In fact, very little is ever explained to him or the audience about how any of it works. People just show up unannounced in his house his second day in town and make themselves comfortable. And from then on the expectation is that he will just do it. It seems like everyone has something to say and that means that the film's protagonist mostly says, "but, I don't want it" over and again. The town bullies this man into finding his faith and come off more as self-serving fanatics. He is lied to, tricked, shamed, guilted, pressured, but no one attempts to find out what he needs or how he sees the world. A precocious child is introduced well into the film and she's too abrasive to believably inspire the heartfelt and literal "come to Jesus" moment of the main character. The enigmatic uncle appears but truly adds nothing. The love story, which begins with his love interest saying that she's a lesbian (one of many unnecessary lies) never really develops aside from a couple of montages. There is a litany of really good feel-good movies about faith. I recommend The Preacher's Wife.

If the point of the film is to show its audience two people, both unlucky in love and bad at dating, trying to find the spark that starts a new relationship, it is marginally successful. But, this couples' issues are not ones that audience members can sympathize with because they are absurd. Schlubby Ryan, our leading male, is being pressured by his roommate to have sex with a woman on what is technically their first date. Anxious Laura, our leading lady, has found out her fiance is gay and couldn't make that work (this is an actually in the movie) and therefore is living with her parents and back in the dating pool. Their awful banter after meeting at the bar in the clubs somehow leads to them going on an official date. This movie will make the viewers wonder if both protagonists have suffered major head trauma. Sure dating is awkward, but the number of times the Laura should have ended their date--his insistence that they remain in his apartment despite making plans to go out, his sudden sexual aggressiveness, etc--is incalculable. There are minimal laughs. It's not clear if the writer/director was attempting to be clever or quirky with the dialogue, but it mostly elicits lots of grimacing. It's as though the characters have never spoken to other human beings. Ever. In a scene in which the two leads are finally clicking and are seemingly finally be able to talk like real people do, Ryan's cheating ex-girlfriend shows up drunk and crying. She gifts him a picture of herself and the man she cheated on him with as a means to-- I'm not sure, but the movie plays it as an attempt to get Ryan back. She is dragged across the floor by her feet. She pees in the sink. All of these are meant to be funny because she is drunk and a terrible person, but on screen there is no humor. There is only inept slapstick, at best. The film's attempt at a twist only makes things more ridiculous. Simply, in the era of social media most mistaken identity plot points are implausible. At no point is there space to root for Ryan and Laura's fledgling romance. More than anything you want each character in this film to seek professional help and remain a court-appointed distance from each other. If you are looking for an easy watch that is lighthearted and offers some laughs, this is not the film.