I Still Believe (2020)

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

The fact that I Still Believe falls under the Christian faith movie genre may immediately alienate a number of people from watching this for fear of this being overbearingly preachy. Well, let me reassure you that this is not the case here. Directed by the Erwin brothers who had also given us "I Can Only Imagine", I Still Believe is a polished piece of work that has high production standards and some solid believable performances from its cast. Loved those spectacular aerial shots as some of the places were introduced.

Jeremy Camp is a talented musician who falls hopelessly in love with Melissa almost as soon as he stepped foot to college. This film tells his story of how he met his first love and how they go through the tragedy that threatened their happiness, while making great music along the way. The story is made more amazing as it is based on a true story. I thought the two young leads, relative unknows, KJ Apa and Britt Robertson carried the movie well with their raw natural talent making the romance on screen believable. By the time tragedy strikes, we have already invested ourselves to these two likeable characters, hence, making the tragedy feel so real. Like "I Can Only Imagine", the tragedy inspires the song that Jeremy Camp finally composed at the end. While the songs here are mainly nice catchy numbers, none of them however has the sort of impact that "I Can Only Imagine" had.

The best Christian faith movies are those which stays clear from being too preachy, and happily this one sticks to the right path. What I particularly liked about this one is that the circumstances depicted here is a realistic balance of ups and downs, and that it doesn't necessarily ends well for everyone. Unlike last year's "Breakthrough" which had a very forced agenda that promotes how the collective power of prayers can manifest into a miracle. While I am not going to dispute the stories, I do object to movies which may give unrealistic expectations to the thousands of people who pray but may not find the miracle that they seek. I Still Believe provide a more abstract view of this as the prayers' answers are more subtle and on the interpretation of its key characters.

I sat through this film totally absorbed and thought it was time well spent.