2021 Catch Up: NINE DAYS, MASS and THE JESUS MUSIC

Three films from last year brush up with issues of spirituality and faith.

As I said a while back, I’m not going to release a list of my favorite 2021 movies until Jan. 31. I’m still trying to catch up with a few things I missed out on when I wasn’t doing as much criticism, and that’s a goal for this month. So, periodically, I’m going to bundle together some shorter thoughts on the movies I watch. 

There isn’t really a rhyme or reason to how I’m watching and bundling these, but this week a theme did reveal itself. I don’t write much officially about faith these days; there are a few reasons for that which I may unpack down the road. But I still am a person of faith and interested in movies about spirituality, Christianity, the church and life’s deepest questions. And in very different ways, these three films touch on questions of the soul, matters of healing and forgiveness, or the tension between faith and commerce. So it just made sense to group them together. I hope you enjoy them! 

Nine Days 

I really wanted to love Edson Oda’s feature debut. Many critics I respect fell deeply for this movie, and there’s a sense in which saying anything negative about this earnest film feels like kicking a puppy. There’s enough here to make me curious about what Oda does in the future, but overall this one just bounced right off me. 

Winston Duke is Will, who lives in some sort of afterlife/pre-life and is responsible for choosing a handful of souls who will get to be born and live on earth. When a tragedy with one of his charges opens up a slot, he conducts a series of interviews with potential souls, subjecting them to a battery of inquisitions and experiments to determine whether they’re worthy of life. Will is also nursing his own secrets and wounds from his past on earth, which causes conflicts when he meets an eccentric candidate named Emma (Zazie Beetz). 

The idea is intriguing. What makes a soul worthy of existence? But the repetitive interview scenes belabor the point and too often feel like Oda is doing double duty, trying to write a screenplay while fulfilling a philosophy class assignment. The concept breaks down when you think too hard about it; I like many of the actors playing the various souls, including Arrested Development’s Tony Hale. They each have their own flaws, traumas and defensive techniques, but these are traditionally the marks that come from living. Why would they be part of people who’ve never taken a breath? Once Beetz’s character shows up, it becomes apparent where the movie is heading, but it spins its wheels for an hour getting there. 

That said, the movie is not without grace notes. Will has a tradition of constructing ways for dismissed applicants to live out their favorite moments from their brief glimpses of life, and these sequences are often touching. Beetz is charismatic and charming, the only one of the applicants to feel genuinely curious about life on earth. A late-night dinner recounting gross-out tales carries a warmth the rest of the movie lacks, thanks largely to Benedict Wong in a welcome supporting role. And Duke, it should be noted, is fantastic as the haunted, sensitive Will. The film culminates in a passionate, riveting monologue in the desert that is one of the most full-blooded scenes of the year. I wish the rest of the movie captured that vitality. 

I didn’t hate Nine Days, and I’m glad those who saw it and loved it had that experience. It just didn’t work for me. But I think Oda has some interesting ideas at play, and I’m curious how he’ll move forward. 

Nine Days is available to rent on most digital platforms. 

Mass 

This was a tough watch. It was just over a month ago that the Oxford High School shooting happened not far from where I live, and the news has focused not only on the young men and women who lost their lives that day but on the parents of the alleged shooter. 

It’s two of the worst fears I can imagine as a parent: losing your child and knowing that your child was responsible for taking lives. Those two fears collide in Mass, Fran Kranz’s thoughtful examination of the ways in which we pursue healing and closure. The film focuses on two couples (Jason Isaac and Martha Plimpton, and Ann Dowd and Reed Birney) who both lost children in a mass shooting. One family’s son was the shooter, who died by his own hand. The other was a victim of the shooting. 

Kranz’s script is perceptive, letting the characters dance around the issue, pull back when they feel themselves lose control, and launch into blistering monologues when the emotions get to be too much. These are gut-wrenching conversations, but the film is also interested in the importance of listening, building empathy and trying to reach some sort of tenuous understanding. It helps when all four actors are giving career-best performances. While the single-room setting could work as a play, the up close nature of cinema allows the actors to react subtly when called for, and the film goes for long stretches of silence as often as it does cathartic moments of expression. 

While the subject matter is certainly harrowing, Kranz is less interested in the subjects of school violence and gun control, and more in how we try to construct some opportunities for understanding and healing. It’s possible to think the script builds to a number of showcase moments for each actor in a way that feels false or structured, but the film is actually about the fact that our processing often involves creating these moments, and using them to work out our thoughts and feelings. Several times, the characters speak their minds and then realize they’ve been using the wrong words. Late in the film, Plimpton has a monologue about forgiveness in which we see her working through her emotions, processing openly and trying to wrap her arms around feelings for which words are inadequate. There’s the sense that what is said and felt in this room might be helpful in the moment, but also ephemeral; a week later, it’s easy to imagine the characters could feel differently. But they’ve made the space to approach some sort of peace; the attempt and facilitation of those conversations is what matters. 

I also appreciate the way the film presents the church as a space for which these difficult but important conversations can occur. Early, we watch as a clergy member and two church employees ready the space for the conversation ahead, paying careful attention to the placement of tissues, the presence of food, and whether the space is far enough away from the noise of the everyday church work. The workers disappear until the end, but their attention to detail speaks quietly but effectively about the importance of sacred, safe places for these weighty moments. It’s an effective way to showcase the care of the church without resorting to proselytizing or agendas. 

Mass isn’t the final word on this subject, and it shouldn’t be. One of its main themes is the inability to fully reach some sort of understanding or peace. But it is a call for empathy, compassion and kindness. It’s one of the most powerful and best films of the year. 

Mass is available to purchase and rent on most digital platforms. 

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The Jesus Music

This documentary from evangelical filmmakers Jon and Andrew Erwin might have been made just for me. 

As I’ve written about extensively here and elsewhere, I grew up in evangelical culture, and I was encouraged to listen mostly if not solely to Christian music as a teenager. This was not hard in the 1990s, as much of it was just as innovative and enjoyable as what was being played on mainstream radio. And since we tend to continue listening to the music of our teenage years, my Spotify account is filled with dc Talk, Michael W. Smith, Five Iron Frenzy and more, even if my tastes have broadened extensively. Some of this stuff is still a jam. 

The Jesus Music is a primer on the history of Christian music, which started as part of the 1970s Jesus Movement, which grew out of the hippie movement. It gives right due to bands like Love Song and artists like Larry Norman before describing the ascent of Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) and its superstars like Amy Grant, Smith, Steven Curtis Chapman and others. 

It’s a lot to cram into just under two hours and the truth is, there is probably a lot more that could be said. There’s a whole documentary to be made about Amy Grant, who started as the genre’s first crossover superstar, weathered a great deal of controversy in Christian circles and has gone on to become not only an American music icon but beloved by the LGBT+ community for her compassion. Likewise, there’s probably an entire film that deserves to be made about the 1970s Jesus Movement, the combustible relationships between the members of dc Talk, or the number of alternative groups that came from labels like Tooth & Nail. The Erwins seem aware of this; we get several brief glimpses of artists apparently being set up for shots in this, but that’s it. And if your history of CCM includes only five seconds of Rebecca St. James, you’re definitely leaving more on the table (there’s arguably a whole Netflix series you could do from this material; it's really interesting). 

The Erwins have built a reputation as probably the most competent and least controversial filmmakers in the faith-based movement. October Baby received fairly strong notices, and their films about Christian singer Jeremy Camp and band Mercy Me were well received (their current theatrical release, American Underdog, has a respectable 74% on Rotten Tomatoes). The documentary is sleek and well-filmed, even if they’re a bit inconsistent and excessive with some stylistic choices. But it fits with many mainstream documentaries and is better assembled than much of what is released to streaming these days. 

The Erwins are literally preaching to the converted here, and it’s very much a love letter to the world of Christian music. I’d appreciate the objectivity a filmmaker outside of the faith might bring to it, as well as some perspective from artists who no longer hold to the faith. But the Erwins don’t go for hagiography. There’s an important and lengthy section about the industry’s failure to pursue diversity and racial unity, and pointed words to the CCM world for treating artists like Kirk Franklin and Lecrae as afterthoughts. The film is honest about the Christian community often being the art’s harshest and most unforgiving critics, and I was glad to see it acknowledge the harmful treatment of Amy Grant after her divorce. The men of dc Talk speak openly about the difficulties of holding that group together, and frontman Toby McKeehan talks candidly about the recent death of his son, also a musician, from an opioid overdose. Given how much Christian culture is (rightly) criticized for putting a happy face on things and avoiding discomfort, it’s refreshing to see the movie tackle these issues. 

I wish they’d gone a bit harder in some areas, though. Early on, the film includes a clip of Billy Graham urging Christians to use their music and the gospel to contribute to racial injustice, poverty, the environment and other important social issues. The film doesn’t address the fact that much of Christian music either sides with people and politicians opposed to those issues, or it stays silent on anything controversial. Smith’s insistence that the modern worship movement is an antidote to the greed-driven industry that CCM became in the 2000s is well-intentioned but comes off a bit tone deaf when you realize how lucrative that market has become and how churches like Hillsong have their own deep flaws to navigate and address. It also feels like a clumsy plug for his own Worship redux from last year. 

Still, anyone expecting a clean-cut, shiny depiction will probably be surprised about some of the rougher material. And the interview subjects, performers as they are, are often very open, funny and sincere. If nothing else, it positions Amy Grant as one of the most important figures in American music and a total badass, and that’s a message worth getting behind. The Jesus Music is probably for fans only, but as one, I was mostly pleased. 

The Jesus Music is now available to rent and purchase.