Kevan Otto

(On TV, June 2022) I don’t often go looking at the parallel universe of films made for Christian audiences. Part of it is due to lack of access (sure, there are streaming platforms – but even they don’t showcase the kind of low-budget religious films) but much of it is due to lack of interest: often showcasing morals over other cinematic virtues for less-demanding and self-selecting audiences, they tend to be cheap, disposable and utterly without impact outside their own sphere. Still, it’s not a bad idea to challenge ourselves once in a while, so when A Question of Faith popped up on BET – well, why not give it a look? The story of three families brought together by a fatal accident caused by texting-while-driving (something insistently mentioned), the film makes a lot out of organ donation and you can probably guess how the three families are linked together. Director Kevan Otto’s film is innocuous in more ways than one. For one thing, its thematic focus on forgiveness virtually ensures that the ending will be a big happy tear-jerker. For another, it’s relatively relaxed about its religious stance: there’s little of the oppositional persecution complex that you’ll find in other religious films, and its bland message of virtue is something that can reach audiences well outside the usual audiences for such movies. The black-dominated cast makes this feel a lot more like a BET movie (complete with melodrama, flat cinematography and lovely actresses) than a religious film… and that’s a great thing. The plotting is biblically contrived (“God works in mysterious ways” and all that), which adds to the melodrama. Still, A Question of Faith is watchable, sometimes even likable in how earnestly it portrays itself. Worse than usual for BET movies, better than expected for religious film – and another reminder that there isn’t much to see in this subgenre.