Movie Review: "Amish Grace"

Amish Grace
Directed by: Gregg Champion
Starring: Kimberly Williams-Paisley, Tammy Blanchard, Matt Letsher,
Rated: TV-PG

Amish Grace is heralded as a great depiction of faith and forgiveness. It's decent in its depiction of the Amish community’s forgiveness of the man who shot killed innocent school children in 2006. While the film obviously has great potential to be a deep and profound discussion on true forgiveness, what is faith, and can the Amish community keep out the sinfulness of this world, the film is slightly wasted on Kimberly Williams-Paisley’s character simply refusing to forgive. Again, when crafted well, it can be interesting, but her character stomping around for two hours shouting “I’m not going to forgive him” is hardly interesting. The film, which glorifies Amish life, painting it in bright, happy colors, also fails to realize that, by depicting the grunginess and evilness of this world as harshly as it does, Williams-Paisley’s failure to forgive is not acceptable to the audience; we can’t sympathize with her character, and find her frustrating, not sympathetic. The film would have been more interesting had simply stuck with the storyline following actress Tammy Blanchard, who is far superior as an actress and whose plot line is far more intriguing. Amish Grace may not much more than an interesting premise for a film, but Ms. Blanchard simply makes it worth watching once, and she’s not even an Amish character.