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<\/figure>\n\n\n\n\u201cBelieve\u201d\nit or not, the PG-rated, Christianity-infused drama \u201cI Still Believe\u201d reminds\nme a lot of \u201cFunny People,\u201d an R-rated Judd Apatow comedy from 2009. Both films\nare overlong (or at least seem that way) and feature an emotional, heartfelt\nstoryline about a character\u2019s struggle with cancer as well as an off-putting\nstoryline about a romantic relationship where both partners become unlikeable\nbecause of their shared dishonesty toward a third party. The difference is that\nin \u201cFunny People,\u201d the relationship portion comes after the sickness portion\nand undermines the connection the characters have made with their audience. In\n\u201cI Still Believe,\u201d the relationship portion comes first, so the connection with\nthe audience is murky when the heavier subject matter comes in and we need to\nbe heavily invested in these characters. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The\nfilm tells the true story of Jeremy Camp (K.J. Apa), who goes off to college\nand makes fast friends with popular Christian musician Jean-Luc (Nathan\nParsons). He also takes notice of audience member Melissa (Britt Robertson) and\nfalls madly in love with her\u2026 before he knows anything about her. I know\nthere\u2019s a romanticism surrounding the concept of \u201clove at first sight,\u201d but especially\npresented the way it is here, I think it\u2019s creepy to fall in love based solely\non physical attractiveness. He approaches her a few times and she eventually\nwarms to him\u2026 even though she doesn\u2019t know anything about him, either. Well,\nexcept that he\u2019s interested in her, but that\u2019s hardly a healthy foundation for\na relationship. Obviously these two are going to fall in love with each other\u2019s\npersonalities eventually, but all they have in common initially is an equal\nsort of shallowness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jeremy\nand Melissa fall in love, but there\u2019s a complication: Melissa isn\u2019t comfortable\nbeing in a romantic relationship with Jeremy because she might already be in\none with Jean-Luc. \u201cMight\u201d isn\u2019t just slippery language in this case, even she\ndoesn\u2019t know if their relationship is romantic or plutonic. But whatever it is,\nit\u2019s enough to make her not want to disclose her relationship with Jeremy to\nJean-Luc. And she insists that Jeremy not disclose it either, which puts them\nboth in the position of feeling pressure to be dishonest. They never choose to\nmake the right decision either, but the whole conflict is unceremoniously\nbrushed aside once Melissa is diagnosed with cancer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The\nrest of the movie is exactly what you\u2019d expect from a romance where one of the\npartners is suffering from a life-threatening illness. Jeremy and Melissa care\nfor each other, inspire each other, are strong for each other, in short love\neach other. It\u2019s nothing that hasn\u2019t been done before (even before\ngenre-definer \u201cThe Fault in Our Stars\u201d), but it\u2019s heart-wrenching all the same.\nAnd the actors really step up their game in these scenes \u2013 where was this\npassion in the early stages of the relationship? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
With\na title like \u201cI Still Believe,\u201d it should come as no surprise that Christianity\nhas a strong presence in this movie. Camp, after all, is a real-life Christian\nrecording artist like Jean-Luc. Many scenes take place at concerts, and when\nthey don\u2019t, the movie likes to sneak in little excuses like campfire\nsing-alongs to feature Christian music. Outside of the music, Melissa talks at\nlength about God\u2019s role for her and His presence in her life. Jeremy talks\nabout God surprisingly little, save for a scene where he talks with his\nminister father (Gary Sinise) about doubts he\u2019s having. Spoiler Alert: he comes\nout of this movie Still Believing. There\u2019s an occasionally cheesy but\nwell-meaning, affirming movie here if you aren\u2019t turned off by that horrible\nfirst third. For me, the movie got its act together a little too late for me to\nforgive it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Grade: C<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI Still Believe\u201d is rated PG for\nthematic material. Its running time is 115 minutes. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Bob Garver NOTE: Please check with local theaters for updated operating procedures. Exercise caution and practice cleanliness and safety if you plan to see any movie theatrically in the… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":46171,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46170"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46170\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}