Christian rocker faces a faith crisis in romantic drama
The spiritual crisis in “I Still Believe” takes about two of the movie’s dawdling 115 minutes. Bristling with grief, Christian soft-rocker Jeremy Camp (KJ Apa) does a Pete Townshend on his acoustic guitar. But he quickly regains control and realizes that he — you guessed it — still believes.
Based on the real-life Camp’s memoir of the same name, “I Still Believe” recounts the singer’s whirlwind college romance with Melissa Henning (Britt Robertson), who succumbed to cancer shortly after the couple married. A sort of “Me, God and the Dying Girl,” the movie is well-made (if slow) and features an attractive cast and a lot of amiable (if bland) religious pop-rock.
What it lacks is any serious wrangling with the theological issues raised by the seemingly random death of an innocent young person. A certain kind of believer will probably accept the movie’s acceptance. But skeptics and adherents of other creeds — including some varieties of Christianity — will probably be unmoved.
Jeremy is introduced as an earnest, handsome and musically gifted kid from a financially strapped Indiana family. His parents (played by Gary Sinise and pop-country diva Shania Twain) scrimp to buy him a guitar before he heads to Southern California to attend an evangelical Protestant college. The school may be as congenial as depicted in this movie, but its actual campus is in reality a lot farther from the beach than the swooping drone shots suggest. Camp makes canny use of the new instrument, soon endearing himself to earnest, pretty Melissa as well as a successful Christian rocker, Jean-Luc (Nathan Parsons). The latter enthusiastically furthers Jeremy’s musical career, a sponsorship rendered a little awkward by the fact that both guys are smitten with Melissa. She tries to navigate a safe path between the two men’s feelings until she’s compelled to choose Jeremy by some urgent news: a diagnosis of ovarian cancer.
There’s lots of praying, whether on stage or in hospital rooms, for Melissa’s recovery. As a dramatic device, however, the possibility of remission doesn’t pack much power. It’s evident that Jeremy and the other characters would draw the same message from her death as from her deliverance.
“I Still Believe” was directed by the filmmakers known as the Erwin Brothers: Jon, who also worked on the script, and Andrew Erwin. They previously made “I Can Only Imagine,” a 2018 musical biopic based on the MercyMe tune of the same title, reportedly the most played Christian rock song ever. The siblings have apparently found their niche.
No longer the devil’s music denounced by some Christians a half-century ago, the rock songs of these movies are yearning but musically easygoing. They are, as Jean-Luc says with one eye on Melissa, “love songs to God — mostly to God.”
Apa (”Riverdale’s” Archie) performs Camp’s compositions in a pleasant tenor that’s lighter than the voice of their original singer. As he strums, the folkie ballads are sometimes swelled by an unseen string section or an invisible choir. The effect of the disembodied accompaniment isn’t particularly eerie. It just makes the songs a little more like the movie itself: slick and sweet.