Jesus Revolution (2023)
We All Want to Change the World
I’m sure the people behind Jesus Revolution hope their film will inspire the same kind of Christian cultural awakening as the one that happened in the late-1960s. TIME Magazine published two disparate cover stories between April of 1966 and June of 1971—the first asking “Is God Dead?” and the other heralding the arrival of “The Jesus Revolution”. Spearheaded by the unlikely duo of conservative California pastor Chuck Smith and Haight-Ashbury seeker Lonnie Firsbee, thousands of hippie youth turned away from sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll in favor of a new form of tuning in, turning on, and dropping out.
Just as the acid-dipped counterculture gave way to malaise and eventual yuppie-ism, so too did the Jesus Revolution’s fervor gradually settle into a less prominent movement of peace, love, and understanding—one eventually overshadowed by the grotesqueries of televangelist opportunism. It’s unclear if a movie about a movement can spark a renaissance, but the team behind Kingdom Story Company (which produced the Lionsgate-distributed Jesus Revolution) have entered the culture war with a major offensive against bad Christian filmmaking.
In 2021, the production company released The Jesus Music, a documentary about the evolution of American Christian music (which contained the seeds of what Jesus Revolution would dramatize two years later); and American Underdog, which chronicled football legend Kurt Warner’s faith-led rise to superstardom. Featuring top-notch production values, award-winning mainstream talent, and an emphasis on “movie” over “message”, brothers/co-directors Jon and Andrew Erwin created two fine examples of mass-appeal entertainment that lead with compelling stories instead of eye-rolling earnestness.
Jesus Revolution follows in those footsteps, but with filmmaker/composer Brent McCorkle stepping into the co-director’s chair with Jon Erwin. Kelsey Grammer stars as Chuck Smith, the buttoned up preacher of a small, aging-out congregation. When his daughter, Janette (Ally Ioannides), brings home hitchhiker Lonnie Frisbee (Jonathan Roumie), the two men break bread (or, more precisely, cradle coffee) and find that their love of God transcends their misconceptions about each other’s lifestyles.
You don’t need to have seen the trailer to guess that there’s a fair amount of slobs-versus-snobs comedy and generational tension as Frisbee’s people begin filling out Smith’s pews. But there’s a third story in Jesus Revolution’s narrative trinity, that of wayward teenager Greg Laurie (Joel Courtney). His alcoholic single mom enrolled him in military school, at which Greg spends much of his time questioning “Duck and Cover” drills and drawing unflattering cartoons of the brass. Upon meeting a free-spirited public school girl named Cathe (Anna Grace Barlow), he trades his uniform for a fringe vest and enlists in Timothy Leary’s (Steve Hanks) peacenik army.
The comparisons to Almost Famous are unavoidable. Greg loses himself in a haze of “cool kid” experimentation and winds up on the doorstep of Smith/Frisbee’s Calvary Church, where he becomes entranced by Frisbee’s religious rock-stardom—only to be disillusioned as publicity, relationships, and a brutal power struggle begin tearing at the fabric of an ostensibly pure ideal. Greg and Cathe’s relationship hits the brick wall of Parents Who Just Don’t Understand, and in the end just about everyone is yanked back from the precipice of self-destruction. In Cameron Crowe’s movie, the dangers stopped with drugs and fame (plus a close call in a tiny airplane); here, the characters deal with more existential matters, such as the temptations of believing that they’ve outgrown the God whom they urge everyone else to worship.
In Jesus Revolution’s strangest (and, strangely, unaddressed) development, Lonnie begins faith-healing members of the congregation. Though Chuck, Greg, and Cathe exchange puzzled looks while bodies writhe and fall back into their seats, at no point does the movie A) take a position on whether or not these central characters believe what they’re seeing; B) depict them confronting Lonnie about the veracity of these miracles; or C) tell the audience whether or not the miracles are supposed to be real—and, if they are or are not, what the wider ramifications of this development could be.
In other words, if the hippies began actually curing normies of their ailments, that would surely become the story of the century (especially since there was a journalist from a certain national publication tailing the Calvary crew from very early on). If it’s all a publicity stunt, well, there goes the movement…potentially. As it stands, this dangling thread is left both unsewn and unsnipped, leading one to wonder if it was based on supposedly true events, or just inserted as a bridge to usher a central character quietly out the backdoor.
As with The Jesus Music and American Underdog, the key to Kingdom Story’s success (at least with the three movies at hand) is that the filmmakers are unafraid to look at the negative aspects of the faith journey. If people were perfect, after all, there would be no need for divine guidance and/or morality plays. Though Jesus Revolution doesn’t delve into the careers and controversies surrounding its characters in the years since its story took place, it does paint them as deeply flawed individuals.
Chuck Smith fights on two fronts: first with generational bigotry; then with pride stemming from a newfound flood of relevance. Greg spends half the film adrift, only to encounter a new set of doubts when deciding to give himself over to God. On paper, it’s quite a moving transition, but I should note that, despite Erwin/McCorkle’s best intentions, there’s a slight cringe factor in their depiction of a family-friendly acid trip.
The filmmakers’ thesis statement really comes across in Jonathan Roumie’s portrayal of Lonnie. We meet the character as a spacey goofball (when introduced to Chuck Smith he informs the pastor that his house has a “really good vibe”), but soon find him to be the soulful, scripture-quoting shepherd of written-off youth. Not having been familiar with the ins and outs of his real-life story, I wasn’t prepared for a hearbreaking heel turn that made me reevaluate Frisbee’s character up to that point. Roumie’s performance is magnetic and nuanced, and he takes some of Jesus Revolution’s magic with him when exiting the picture.
Back to my opening point. Staking the prospects of a new spiritual revival is a lot to put on a movie. But if there is to be an artistic gateway to a new era of nationwide empathy and tolerance, one could do far worse than Jesus Revolution. Of course, not everyone will connect with the specifics of the filmmakers’ Christ-centered answers to our various woes and seemingly insurmountable differences. But at its heart, Jesus Revolution asks us to look at why we’ve lost faith in our institutions, our distractions, our neighbors, and ourselves—and to consider the possibility of finding peace outside the realm of the tactile. If nothing else, it’s got ten times the aspiration and meaning of soulless studio product like Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and Cocaine Bear.
Watch Ian’s interview with Jesus Revolution co-directors Jon Erwin and Brent McCorkle, and producer Kevin Downes.
