The movies we call faith-based often take the form of disaster porn. It only makes sense. These movies, framed as tests of faith, are built around a literalization of the spirit of Job and Jesus — the Biblical figures who found transcendence by facing the worst that life could dish out. (That’s how a lot of us find our faith.)
“I Can Only Imagine,” the 2018 Christian rock drama that was framed as a biopic of Bart Millard (John Michael Finley), the lead singer of MercyMe, may have been a feel-good parable pegged to one of the biggest Christian pop hits of all time (the title song, which was released in 2001). But it was all about overcoming the darkness — in this case, the fact that Bart was drowning in daddy issues, with a father, played by Dennis Quaid (who lent a veteran great actor’s force to the movie), with violent abusive ways that shadowed Bart. How do you find your faith when your father has taught you to hate yourself? That’s the dilemma “I Can Only Imagine” tapped into, though of course it was also a sentimental disease-of-the-week movie in which the bad dad sees the error of his ways, and the kid becomes a whopping success. In faith-based cinema, the miracles never cease.
If you’re wondering why it took eight years to make “I Can Only Imagine 2,” the answer is: It wasn’t until 2017 that MercyMe released a song, “Even If,” that was even half a big as “I Can Only Imagine” (the movie involves the writing of that song). Nevertheless, with Bart’s daddy war behind him, you wonder what the directors, Andrew Erwin and Brent McCorkle, are going to come up with for drama. The addictive temptations of fame? Nope. Bart, still played by John Michael Finley, is now a devoted family man, shaggier and a bit bulkier than before (which makes him seem all the more like the G-rated Eddie Vedder of power-chord Biblical uplift). But the movie opens with the discovery that his young son, Sam, has type 1 diabetes; this means that the kid is going to have a life of insulin shots and general caution. Okay, we think, and that means…?
It means that 10 years later, Bart is moody, addled, struggling to write another hit song, staring at his notebook as he waits for the inspiration to strike. And it means that Sam (Sammy Dell), now a surly teenager, balks at how his dad is always pestering him to measure his insulin levels and take his shots on time. They fight about it; it’s starting to toxify their relationship. “Dreams don’t pay the bills,” says a voice on the soundtrack, and we recognize it as Dennis Quaid’s Arthur, dispensing that don’t-follow-your-bliss advice that made Bart’s youth such a joy.
So when the moment arrives for Bart to go on the road again, piling onto the MercyMe tour bus, an idea comes to the fore: What if Sam went on tour with them? “I’m worried it might break him,” says Bart. His wife, Shannon (Sophie Skelton), replies, “Or he just might fix you.” Spoiler alert!
“I Can Only Imagine” had a clean dramatic line of despair and redemption, and that’s why it worked as a movie (and made $83 million domestic). Yet even if you go into “I Can Only Imagine 2” feeling immersed in the Bart Millard saga, the new movie is a bit of an odd duck, like a faith-based drama on tranquilizers, because it keeps tossing out conflicts that aren’t all that major (or convincing). The tension between Bart and Sam is on a low enough simmer that any parent will recognize it, but we also can’t help but notice the following: that Sam is an aspiring musician, so it would be the most natural thing in the world for his benevolent Christian-family-man rock-star dad to, you know, pick up a guitar and play with him. But no! Bart has to learn the lesson that he’s been ignoring his son’s dream, just like his dad did. It’s a bit of “Cat’s in the Cradle,” though fuzzier and less biting.
And then there’s Tim Timmons (Milo Ventimiglia). He’s the singer-songwriter who’s been chosen to be MercyMe’s opening act, and he’s an irascible contradiction: a bearded folk-rock hipster who specializes in busting people’s chops, yet he’s also the most pious person on the tour bus, devoted to his book on the history of hymns. When he asks Sam to be his guitar tech, we wonder if he’s going to emerge as a rival father figure for Bart. But no. He’s just on hand to give Bart some badly needed pep talks about what faith really means — which is being grateful for each and every day, and doing so by finding the beauty in it. (He draws a “tattooed” cross on his wrist each day to remind himself.) Ventimiglia is such an appealing actor that I was touched by this lesson, even as I snapped back to the gauzy feeling that I was being given a fortune cookie dressed up as Sunday school.
John Michael Finley play Bart as a surly good man in a funk. You could say that he has privileged problems, and the film never strains to make it look otherwise. That’s what’s mildly genuine about it; it’s not overinflating Bart’s crisis of faith into a melodramatic big deal. But I also think that could limit the audience for “I Can Only Imagine 2.” On the tour bus, Bart and his buddies, like the band manager, Brick (Trace Adkins), who’s like an aging biker with the voice of Sam Elliott, engage in a form of badinage that I would characterize as bro Christianity. They’re devout, but they’re just dudes. And that’s kind of the point. “I Can Only Imagine 2” isn’t really caught in some Christian niche. It’s as universal a warm bath as a Hallmark Channel movie, leaving it to you to decide if that’s what Jesus had in mind.
