FoxFaith aims for Christian market

Last fall, 20th Century Fox launched a new division called FoxFaith. Its aim? To provide “morally-driven, family-friendly” entertainment for the Christian market.

The marketing strategy includes direct connections with individuals and churches. A database of more than 14 million Christian households has been created and more than 90,000 congregations have already “opted in” to receiving information about FoxFaith films.

The movie habits of Canadians diverge from those of our southern neighbours in several respects, including rates of attendance and the movies we favour, but we’re considered part of the U.S. “domestic market.” So, when FoxFaith’s public relations people contacted us at the Herald, we opted in too.

Soon, screeners of three recent releases had arrived in our mailbox.

One Night with the King tells the biblical story of Hadassah, the Jewish girl who unexpectedly ends up as queen Esther in King Xerxes’ Persian court, with the opportunity to save her people, though it may cost her her life.

The Last Sin-Eater, set in the Appalachians, is about a young girl’s quest for release from the burden of guilt she carries for something that happened in her family. When she observes a ritual at her grandmother’s funeral in which an ostracized man who has the role of the community’s “sin eater” takes away the deceased woman’s sin, she wants it too. But she wants it before she dies. The film peels back layers of community relationships and also reveals Christ as the true “sin eater.”

The Ultimate Gift is the story of the young heir to a fortune who can’t have access to it until he’s learned a series of lessons (beginning with the value of work) that will prove much more important than the money. The young actress Abigail Breslin of Little Miss Sunshine fame plays a bossy but wise catalyst for some of these lessons.

Branded for health

I really wanted to like these films. One may be cynical about marketing strategies that co-opt pastors into shilling for Hollywood under the guise of evangelism or family values but there’s certainly something commendable about raising the bar on content, especially for family viewing. Foods are branded for health by what they leave out; why not movie labels?

To continue the analogy, however, one hopes the healthier food will still be delicious.

These three just weren’t that good. One Night with the King has grand scale, epic intentions, featuring crowd scenes and horses galloping over vast sets, but we don’t get close enough to the main characters to care about them much. And the narrative is confusing, even for someone who knows the Bible story (or maybe because of that!).

The Last Sin-Eater seems uncertain whether it wants to be a sentimental poor-folks tale of restored relationships or a kind of morality play. Perhaps it tries to be both, but with its numerous plot twists and purple score it just becomes too long.

The Ultimate Gift is definitely the best of the trio. A group of young adults who watched it in Winnipeg resonated with the challenge of taking responsibility and growing up in a world of relative privilege. The film’s trajectory is so utterly predictable, however, it’s hard to sustain interest through all the lessons the protagonist needs to learn.

Finding their groove?

Is it simply coincidence that FoxFaith’s early offerings aren’t great? Could it be that the desire to sell to a certain moral demographic actually skews the filmmaking process? Or is it just a matter of finding their groove? (Duds are a dime a dozen, after all, in the movie industry.)

These three films vary in how explicit they are about the Christian faith. That element seems almost beside the point, however, when they fail at the production and storytelling values we have come to expect from movies in our culture.

But if it’s only half a thumb up for these films, it’s not thumbs down on the label yet. We’ll continue to watch with interest and best wishes. Each FoxFaith product will have to succeed on its merits, though, not on its churchly connections.