One of the things in the backdrop to the 50 Shades of Grey movie release was a movie that was pitched as a direct alternative to this movie, and in fact released on the same day. That movie was Old Fashioned.
With life and human failings come the tendency to prejudice and negativity. In re-reading the comments to that thread afterwards I noted a lot of it. Some of that negativity came from the typical expectation, some of it from how the movie was pitched. Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of this movie, compared to my impressions from the trailer and the review. Where the Kendricks are inept when it comes to film making, the writers and producers of this one are much more accomplished.
(spoilers afoot from here)
While functioning in the backdrop of “dating” or a “romance”, Old Fashioned functions as an examination of the individuals involved in this journey, more than anything to do with marriage or romance. This said, the Christian themes of this movie have nothing to do with marriage, courtship, or dating.
The primary themes are ones of Law and Grace.
We are introduced to a man, Clay, who is working in an antique shop, named “Old Fashioned”. Occasionally, he repairs old furniture. Amber, the free spirit, comes into town. She has run out of gas and out of money, so she decides to stay and rent an apartment. This turns out to be the upper loft of the antique shop, where she meets and takes an interest in Clay.
Pretty quickly, we find Clay is very closed off to interacting with Amber, preferring to keeping her in a separate room. However, he is not closed off to sharing his “theories on dating” with anyone who will listen, explaining him doing this. Notably, these rules turn out to be an accurate view of the courtship movement, including the lack of recognition that borders can exist in dating. We also meet his friends, Brad or Lucky Chucky who is a radio jockey (think Leykis clone), and David, who is “living in sin” with a woman that he knocked up, who are annoyed pretty consistently by Clay’s “theories”.
As the movie progresses, we find out about the pasts of both Clay and Amber as the barriers begin to fall between them. We have these things revealed to us as they and the townspeople interact, most notably by Amber breaking things in the apartment so she can get time to interact with Clay. Clay has a certain past that he’s repented of when “Jesus found him”, which we find later involves being a PUA who produced Girls Gone Wild type audios with his radio jockey friend.
Amber has a past of chasing after “the warm fuzzies”, leading her to deal with multiple men, and running away when things get “messy” and her gas money jar gets full. This is shown to us by her broken hand, which we learn was done by the last man she was with over her decision to wear some nail polish.
Much of the focus of the movie is on Clay and this world he finds himself in which is hostile to his beliefs, not much affirming his views. We find out in the talk between Amber and her friends, and directly through Clay’s decision surrounding his friends. However, we find Amber falling in love with Clay’s rules and structure before she does him, finding a man that knows what he believes and upholds it to be different than what she previously knew through their “not date” dates into their first real date at a marriage counselor (again courtship). Eventually the ice thaws enough between them that they take a trip to his house along with his Aunt. This leads to a trip to church, a first for her (“spiritual but not religious”) and a long absence for him (“others not perfect so he didn’t fit in”). This leads her to find a testimony of love that she hasn’t gotten before, and allows her to let Jesus find her outside of Clay.
The crisis point of the film involves issues of temptation to faith. One is Clay standing up for his faith where he rejects being in David’s bachelor party when he finds a stripper has been invited. This leads him to plead to David over it, David agreeing, and the party being broken up. But not before everyone else involved has words for him, and the stripper’s bodyguard comes to blows with him. Then his old girlfriend, Kelly, shows up at his door. Amber’s involves Clay continuing to not be open with her (she has extended an incredible amount of grace towards him on this point in the movie), coupled with his unwillingness to confess his past when she confessed hers, at the prompting of the marriage counseling question guide they got, leading her to watch one of Clay’s old videos. She then goes out and her friends help her to pick up Brad which leads her back to his motel room.
This leads to a happy ending, where both resist the temptation to follow through. But in looking for each other to talk, they get mistaken notions of what the other did. Clay’s aunt’s talk at the end, coupled with Amber ridding herself of her “memory board” and the “gas money jar” drives home what was going on fully: Clay was unwilling to forgive himself for his past and allow grace to get into his life from God’s forgiveness, while Amber was running from her past instead of dealing with it. We get one final scene of real “romance” at the end, which functions as a proof that both were listening to each other all along.
As I noted above, this movie was done by film makers much more able than the Kendricks and it showed all the way through. That a film maker powerfully got across the concepts of law and grace without using The Sledgehammer of Plot(tm), was refreshing. The choices of symbolism, lighting, and the expression of the actors expressed the emotions and gravity of the situation and many of the Scriptures that could have been referenced. The ones that were quoted were non-intrusive in the dialogue.
Outside of Amber being the initiator so much, which will be objectionable to some, it provides a wonderful example in Amber to those women who have been trained to not be active of IOIs as the actress playing her uses them constantly.
Furthermore, I enjoyed the balanced and (generally) correct view of law and grace that was presented. It could be said that Clay was overly stuck in a “law” view where he didn’t accept God’s grace, while Amber was representative of the “cheap grace” common to Churchianity today. The clear depiction of both requiring a journey in life requiring effort and cost to attain grace, along with the repentance shown in both parties by “letting the old things pass away” (2 Cor 5:17) was refreshing. In other words, both Clay and Amber were treated equally in terms of their ability to sin, both were presented as truly broken people, both fessed up to their own mistakes, and both had the choice on whether to accept the other or not.
The fact that Clay was presented as a Christian man with true convictions that he never wavered on despite the opposition, who gained respect from others (notably Amber and David), was refreshing as well.
The confusion between romance and love exists within this movie, but outside of a few things I could nit-pick on, as a Christian message, I found this movie to have a very affirming and positive story line, with a distinct minimum of true feminist thought in it. I know nothing of the other movies from this studio, but as for this one, it was a definite step up from the Kendrick’s fare. While not anything approaching a “classic”, it is definitely worth watching if you are looking for such fare.
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