by Mark Gabrish Conlan • Copyright © 2020 by Mark Gabrish Conlan • All rights reserved
Alas, Lifetime followed Miracles from Heaven with another movie, A Question of Faith, which did not have the integrity of being based on a true story. Instead, it was
based on so preposterous a set of coincidences writer Ty Manns and director
Kevin Otto should have been ashamed of themselves! The story centers around
three families, one Black, one Latina and one white. The Black family are David
Newman (Richard T. Jones), assistant pastor to his father Farnsworth Newman
(Gregory Alan Williams) in what looks like a Black mega-church, who’s being
groomed to take over as pastor when dad retires; his wife Theresa (Kim Fields)
and their sons Junior (James Hooper) and Eric (Caleb Thomas). Dad has just put
David in charge of a major construction project to remodel and expand the
church, only the church board has appointed a woman to be a middle-person
between him and the board, and because he has to meet with her he can’t pick up
his son Eric from an important basketball game. Neither, it turns out (but for
less clear reasons) can Theresa, so Eric is left to walk home alone. The
Latinas (I’m using the feminine form because both are women) are restaurant
owner Kate Hernandez (Jaci Velasquez) and her daughter Maria (Karen Valero),
who’s responsible for doing deliveries for the eatery (a plot point that’s
become unexpectedly timely now!) even though she’s got a penchant for texting
while driving and mom has already warned her against this. The white family are
the Danielsons: dad is contractor John (C. Thomas Howell, one of those
frustrating actors who’s better than most of the movies he’s been in), who’s
overextended and dealing with a bank who’s about to foreclose on him; mom is
Mary (Renée O’Connor) and their daughter is Michelle (Amber Thompson), who has
a fabulous voice and is about to audition for a record label, which leads John
to hope that she’ll get a big enough advance to pay off his debts and allow him
to keep his business (which he inherited from his dad) from going under — only while singing in a
white church the day before her audition she collapses, and it turns out she
has severe heart disease and will die unless she gets a transplant within five
days.
Given the above information you could probably write it yourself: while
he’s walking home from his basketball game Eric is run down by Marie while
she’s texting and driving on a delivery. He ends up in the hospital, alive but
brain-dead, and David agrees to have the plug pulled on his son and also to
allow his organs to be donated for transplants. And guess who receives Eric’s
heart? That’s right, Michelle Danielson. And guess who gets the big contract to
do the remodel on the Newmans’ church? That’s right, John Danielson, who now
has enough work (including a major advance that allows him to hire a crew and
get started so he can ultimately pay off his loans) he doesn’t have to worry
about solvency anymore. Along the way there are a few crises of conscience,
including a few stabs at dealing with the theodicy problem in ways far less
meaningful and interesting than the ones in Miracles from Heaven — one gets the impression from both these movies,
especially watching them back-to-back, that God has the Mother of All
Münchhausen’s Syndromes, making bad things happen to good people just so he can
get his kicks by making good
things happen that will allow us to get over them and still believe that, all
in all, God is Love. There are a few bits of conflict writer Manns and director
Otto throw into the mix — including one in which Farnsworth Newman withdraws
his retirement because he senses his son David’s bitterness over the pointless
loss of his son has made him too
bitter to be a pastor, especially
if he has to deal with congregants facing similar losses — but for the most
part A Question of Faith has all
the blatant manipulativeness of Miracles from Heaven and virtually none of the integrity Miracles
from Heaven got from being a true story and
therefore having to comport at least to some extent with the normal rules of
human behaviors and emotions.
