Review of The Cokeville Miracle (2015) by Jeff B — 04 Sep 2016

I'm a member of the church and I found this only slightly interesting. Personally, I never knew about this incident, but enjoyed the film somewhat. The problem I have with it is that the story development, characters and their interactions never really drew me in. There just seemed to be a lack of depth or realism to the characters. It was as if such was an after thought to the story itself which, ironically, damaged the story in the long run.

But this film is also problematic because it's about faith. And whoa how that can stir up a hornets nest. You can have excessive violence and mayhem in a film and few complain. You bring in God and faith and watch people fly out of their chairs to complain (see the movie critiques on any review site as examples).

It's only at the end that it becomes evident that these people are LDS, which I think is a cop out. Sure, the director wanted to make it more generic (why? to gain more viewers?) If they were LDS, they were LDS, so be it. And those asking why were these kids saved and not people in other disasters, I suggest you pray about that one. ;o).

Overall, not a bad film. It really didn't touch me. I've seen much better films portraying stories of faith as more realistic and whole with better and more multi-dimensional characters. Not bad, but not great.