In 1845, a crowd gathers in a field as a young girl is hooded and hoisted into the air by a rope tied to an old oak tree. The men surrounding the base of the tree light a fire, and a priest prays aloud, holding a doll in his hands. The crowd does nothing to…
“And a little child shall lead them” — Isaiah 1:16 On May 13, 1917, three children, 10-year-old Lúcia (Stephanie Gil, “Terminator: Dark Fate”) and her younger cousins Francisco (Jorge Lamelas) and Jacinta (Alejandra Howard, “Cleo” TV series) were tending their family’s flock of sheep at the Cova da Iria, the family pastureland in the Portuguese…
Inspirational dramas are inherently uplifting, motivational and psychologically gripping. Their feel-good elements or inevitable triumph-into-tragedy climaxes are the functional foundations behind rewarding, emotionally-charged cinema. However, tear-jerking tales of adversity sometimes often fall into the realm of derivative dramatics that register in mawkishness despite their well-intentional pursuit of truthful sentimentality. Writer-director T.C. Christensen’s (“The Cokeville Miracle”)…
I suppose the title, “The Christmas Pageant That Almost Never Was” would have worked, but Believe is fine. After all, it’s the holiday season, so we’re entitled to a little suspension of (dis)belief, as the newest faith-heavy film from writer/director Billy Dickson in his major debut, conveys. Drawing allusions to Frank Capra’s 1946 classic, “It’s…
