As Don undergoes a complete unraveling of his spiritual identity, we realize he's really never been given a good picture of what true Christian faith looks like.

While the movie raises valuable questions about Christianity, offering good answers is another matter entirely, and perhaps outside of what a movie like this should do. As a satire, it works but again, to the extent that the film sketches a different vision of Christian faith, it falters, largely due to the weak foundation it's given by Miller's book.

So he heads to school against his mom's wishes and plunges into drinking, partying, and atheism.ĭon gives voice to a cynicism that many evangelicals, particularly of college age, will surely relate to, and the movie's knocks on some of the cultural trappings of Christianity are probably deserved. Since he was raised in a church where Jesus exists just to make him happy, it's only logical that he would abandon his faith the minute his happiness runs out. The Pope (Justin Welborn, left) joins Don int he confession boothĭon's leap from church to uber-secular university comes quickly, though, as he finds that his divorced mom is having an affair with the very same corny youth pastor.

The acting is solid, if unremarkable, though Marshall Allman (who plays Don) deserves kudos for playing a character who is essentially a blank canvas, and making him someone we sympathize with and are engaged by. And he does a lot with a little, budget-wise this film was financed largely via Kickstarter, and while the production values are not exactly high, it is nevertheless a quirky and genuinely funny indie. On the plus side, much like the book it's based upon, Blue Like Jazz is anything but a typical 'Christian movie.' Besides, director Steve Taylor, a long-time rocker known for irreverent satire and his disdain of schmaltz, has rarely done anything typically 'Christian.' Taylor brings this movie the kind of grit (read: off-color humor, some brutal satirizations of evangelical subculture, and even some four-letter words) that you won't find in, say, Courageous. But what both the book and the movie ultimately deliver are spelled out in the book's subtitle: 'Non-religious thoughts on Christian spirituality.'įor those who love Jesus and movies, the implications of that promise are decidedly mixed.

I'm not entirely sure how comfortable author Donald Miller would be with the 'Christian book' label, but it was released by a Christian publisher (Thomas Nelson), a lot of evangelicals bought it, and it is filed under the 'Christian life' section at Barnes & Noble. Blue Like Jazz is based on the 2003 bestselling Christian book of the same title-but you should probably take that with a grain of salt.

Donald miller blue like jazz author