'A Week Away' somehow makes Christian music worse
The Netflix musical can't escape blandness or make its spirituality convincing.
I was a product of evangelical culture.
My parents were not in the ministry, but they were dedicated members of the Baptist churches in which I grew up. My dad, in particular, made some of his best memories during his high school years travelling with his church’s musical group, and I think he wanted to make sure I had the same opportunities. It was decided early that I would be involved in youth group as a teenager, and my entire social life revolved around the church. Pretty much every weekend, I was at some sort of youth group party, service event or rally. In school, I helped organize our annual See You at the Pole and led a Bible study at our high school.
As much time as I spend nitpicking Christian culture, it comes from a place of love. I don’t regret any of the time I spent in church as a teenager. I made great friends, and I have fond memories. I helped lead a vacation Bible school on the west coast of our state, I went white-water rafting several times, and both churches we attended throughout my first 20 years were perfect places for playing hide and seek. I attended church camp every summer, and while I don’t have any real memories of great spiritual insights gleaned there, there are few things better as a middle-schooler than traipsing through a muddy bog or being launched off a Blob.
More importantly, despite some bad tendencies my evangelical youth instilled in me — a sense of superiority and self-righteousness chief among them — it was during those years that I began asking spiritual questions, searching for answers and starting down a path that continues to inform my life. The only reason I can look back and question Christian culture is because a love for Jesus was instilled in me early on, and my biggest frustrations come from the way that culture often looks nothing like Jesus.
As much as I was a product of evangelical culture, I was also a product of Christian pop culture. My parents strongly encouraged us to listen to Christian music, and I quickly became a devotee. One of my first cassettes was dc Talk’s Nu Thang, and my first concert was for Steven Curtis Chapman’s The Great Adventure tour. I saw Michael W. Smith, the Newsboys, Audio Adrenaline, and Geoff Moore and the Distance whenever they came to town, the perks of having a mom who worked for Ticketmaster. I scoffed at my brother when he brought home Green Day’s Dookie, wondering why he had to listen to such trash when Petra provided a wholesome alternative (I was a fun teen). I always understood that Christian films and novels were often artistically subpar to the work of “secular” artists, but I always defended Christian music. I see now that it was less due to the quality (although, to be honest: some of those ‘90s Christian rock groups put out bangers) and more that it hit me emotionally at a time when was asking important questions.
As I got older, I began to realize some of the more problematic aspects of mixing faith and commerce, and to see that the ‘Christian’ label I cherished was not always a sign of spirituality so much as a marketing term designed to assure parents that art was “safe” and “inoffensive,” two things I later found Christianity should not be. I began the hard — and still ongoing — work of asking how much of what I believed was genuine and how much of it was tied up in a culture where I had relationships and identities. I became aware of how easily genuine faith can be mixed up in a desire for profit and power, mingled with politics and used as a weapon. I saw Green Day in concert three times.
And yet, I still couldn’t erase the CCM from my Spotify. I made sure every road trip playlist had a long section of ‘90s Christian music. I still regularly have dc Talk, Michael W. Smith and even Petra in my rotation, not necessarily because I think it’s all high quality (although again, dc Talk slaps) but because I have a guilty fondness for it. I even started a podcast with the leader of a Christian ska band and had the opportunity to talk to people like Steve Taylor, Reese Roper and Derek Webb, whose music had been so influential. I briefly met Amy Grant. Christian pop culture hit me at my most formative years, and I don’t think it’s going away (side note: I’d like to write more about this from time to time; comment if you’d be interested in reading that). Some people are Huey Lewis fans; I have a soft spot for Smitty.
All of this is just a long-winded preamble to saying that the new Netflix musical A Week Away should have been catnip for me, a film that blasted past my critical faculties to deliver a straight shot to my nostalgia bone. Instead, it’s a sugar-blasted bit of vaguely spiritual insipidness that somehow manages to make Christian pop music even blander. The only thing genuine about it is the way it captures the feelings of Christian summer camp, in which a collision of energy, hormones and Jesus talk can briefly mimic a spiritual epiphany.
The film stars Kevin Quinn as Will a troubled teen whose only hope to staying out of juvenile hall is to be a sent to a Christian summer camp. Will doesn’t want to go to Jesus camp, but he also doesn’t want to go to juvie, and once he meets the camp director’s cute daughter Avery (Bailee Madison), he decides to stick around, and eventually forms a friendship with ‘80s-obsessed George (Jahbril Cook), who pines after Presley (Kat Conner Sterling). David Koechner and Sherri Shepherd show up as the requisite actors you’ve seen be much better in real movies.
There isn’t much in the way of conflict or tension. Will quickly gets over his frustrations of being at Jesus Camp when he realizes there are girls to flirt with. He occasionally mumbles something about how he always has “an exit plan” and there are moments where he feels like his past might be revealed to Avery, but they are minor complications only brought up when the plot needs to be pushed along. There are camp games that need to be won, but they never have much in the way of stakes. Sometimes there’s a spiritual platitude trotted out like “God sees you — and He’s a fan,” but there’s never a drawn-out conversion sequence nor is there a real interwoven spiritual struggle between the vague “where’s God when I’m suffering” and “is there a place where I belong” questions all these films pay lip service to before pivoting to the happy ending. The movie could be in and out the door in 20 minutes, were it not for the fact that it constantly stops so the characters can break out into song-and-dance numbers.
There’s a sense in which I am very much not the target audience for this movie. I was too old for High School Musical, and this feels very much like a faith-based attempt to capture that tone. Maybe the youth group crowd will get into this, although I’m not quite certain to what extent the youth group culture of the ‘90s still exists. I imagine most teens will pick up on the blandness and absence of angst, not to mention the fact that the film’s romantic subplots are void of any tension and chemistry, and are chaste enough that even Pureflix would probably say “hey, maybe spice this up a bit” (the closest any of its romantic couples get is holding hands at the end of the film). The leads are likable enough and have energy, but they never bring any emotion or character to the film’s multiple musical numbers, which leaves much of the sequences feeling like a selection from a Sunday night Youth Night or, at best, the distraction you watch while you eat a burger at a regional theme park.
But in many ways, I don’t know that teenagers are the target audience of A Week Away. The film leans hard on tweaking the nostalgia of adults who spent their summers at Christian camp and listening to CCM. The majority of the movie’s songs are covers of 1990s CCM standards, including “The Great Adventure” and “Dive” by Steven Curtis Chapman, “Baby Baby” by Amy Grant, “Place in this World” by Michael W. Smith, and “Big House” by Audio Adrenaline. Grant and Chapman show up in cameos. Most of the cast members were likely too young to have heard these names, but anyone entrenched in Christian culture at that age (so, in their 30s and 40s now) will recognize these songs and these faces.
And I’ll be honest: Many of those songs up there are songs I not only loved upon their release, but they’re songs I still occasionally listen to (“Big House” is a bop). This was from a period when artists were trying to figure out just how much Christian music could mimic mainstream music, and sometimes it didn’t sound too far removed. Amy Grant’s Heart in Motion was a fairly big commercial hit, and some of these artists were played on MTV. But A Week Away finds a way to Disney-fy every one of them, turning them into bland, lifeless numbers where the situations don’t even tie into the lyrics. I’m not trying to suggest that Steven Curtis Chapman or Audio Adrenaline were edgy; but if you squinted, you could imagine them as songs you’d hear on the radio. The versions here are overly produced and auto-tuned; they sound like a Kidz Bop version of a Wow: The Hits compilation (to the uninitiated, the Wow series was the Christian version of Now That’s What I Call Music). And not to further pile on, but there’s no good reason to have the cast sing “Big House” during a paintball game when the lyrics talk about a “big big yard where we can play football,” and I don’t know how anyone involved could know 1990s Christian music and NOT end this with everyone leaving camp singing Michael W. Smith’s “Friends” (although sharp listeners can hear that staple in this year’s best picture nominee, Minari). Also, final musical gripe: this might have the worst rendition of Rich Mullins’ “Awesome God” I’ve heard — and I co-host a podcast with the lead singer of The Insyderz.
But what most nags at me is A Week Away’s limp approach to faith. Don’t get me wrong, I’m very grateful that this is never a Kirk Cameron screed, nor does it ever approach the hateful, angry tone of God’s Not Dead. But the faith of its characters seems obligatory; they talk about Jesus and hope because they’re at camp, but the film never ventures far beyond those vagaries. Which isn’t necessarily a problem — not every movie about Christianity needs to have a message (I’d actually suggest most don’t) — but there’s never really anything to suggest that there’s much deeper to Will’s change at the end than “these people are nice and I like them,” which is a problem when the story is trying to convince the audience he’s had some sort of spiritual experience. Instead, faith is just a part of the wallpaper. It’s not a shift in belief, it’s not a spiritual encounter, it’s not a moral reckoning; faith is just the culture these characters live in, and Will decides he wants to be a part of that culture, too.
There is absolutely a place for films that want to explore the tensions, contradictions, problems and even beauty of Christian community and culture, and films as diverse as Saved, Faith-Ba$ed, Lars and the Real Girl, and Blue Like Jazz have successfully touched on that. A few years ago, there was even a comedy about Christian summer camp, Camp Manna, that looked at Christian culture with a balance of affection, self-awareness and sharp visual humor. There are things to say about Christian culture, but A Week Away never seems interested in engaging it.
But it also never sells that there’s something real to the faith of its characters. And having faith as nothing more than the furniture can be problematic in a time when there is confusion between what constitutes real, life-changing questions of belief and what is just a culture we’ve formed around it. I’m not asking director Roman White to turn into Terrence Malick, but I wish the film had probed a bit deeper into its characters and their spiritual needs. Not only would that do these themes justice, but it might have given the songs a bit more punch.
A Week Away is streaming on Netflix.
Chrisicisms
The pop culture I’m enjoying this week
Q: Into the Storm (HBO Max)I finished the six-part documentary series earlier this week. Initially, I was frustrated by its sprawling nature. Hoping for an exploration of the people who believe conspiracy theories and how they’re perpetuated, it’s instead a look for the elusive Q and a deep-dive into the individuals who own and operate 8chan. What I didn’t realize going in was how closely the identity of Q and the needs of 8chan might be intertwined, but the series does a strong job of tying those together. It spends time with some deeply unsavory individuals and posits that the hysteria that nearly toppled a nation may have been due to the cynical whims of a web nerd. I don’t know that the series every completely holds together, but some of its allegations are fascinating. And while the subjects are deeply unlikable, they are compelling.
Freaky (rental): Christopher Landon’s horror-comedy was originally titled Freaky Friday the 13th. And while I can understand why that probably had to be changed, it’s a great logline for the flick. Vince Vaughn plays a masked slasher who switches bodies with one of his intended victims, a teenager girl (Kathryn Newton). The result is a fun little flick that should delight slasher movie fans as well as those who love a good high-concept comedy. Vaughn’s solid both as the relentless killing machine and when he has to play a teenage girl trapped in that body; he not only lands the comedic moments, but has a few emotional beats that play well, too. Newton has fun playing both the mousy girl and a deranged lunatic grappling with the physical limitations of a new body. The film balances the gory slasher aspects with the comedy well, and while it doesn’t revolutionize the genre, it’s an enjoyable addition to it for fans.
The Mighty Ducks - Game-Changers (Disney+): I’ve seen three episodes of the Disney+ series, and it’s about as good as you can expect. Lauren Graham is fine in the role as a mother coaching her son’s upstart hockey team after he’s benched from The Ducks, which in the last 20 years or so has become a powerhouse obsessed with winning. I wish Emilio Estevez had more to do rather than act surly and complain; it’s weird to reset Gordon Bombay to where he was at the beginning of the first film, but he plays the curmudgeon well and I’m sure in an episode or two he’ll shed that skin and become a dedicated coach. The kids aren’t as fun or memorable as the original cast, but they’re likable enough. Really, the sports movie formula is an easy sell for me, and the episodes are short enough that it’s a breezy, fun watch with my son. Again, it’s not great, but it’s about on par with what’s come before.
The Emperor’s New Groove (Disney+): Watched this with my kids last weekend. I hadn’t seen it since shortly after its original home video release. I had pleasant memories, but didn’t recall it being anything special. But man, was I wrong. This movie is a hoot. It was released around the time Disney would occasionally take risks and deliver something a bit sillier and weirder than its usual princess fare (Lilo and Stitch, released shortly after this, is the best example). Emperor’s New Groove feels a bit slight because there aren’t any great emotional stakes. But this is likely the closest the studio came to going pure Looney Tunes. It’s not just David Spade’s snark. It’s every hilarious line said by Eartha Kitt or every single moment Patrick Warburton’s Kronk is on the screen (his theme song is the best). It’s the wonderfully bizarre non sequiturs and the colorful, weird animation. I can’t recall the last time a Disney cartoon was allowed to be this much fun.