Redeeming Love (2022 film)

Redeeming Love is a 2022 American Christian Western romance film directed by D.J. Caruso, who co-wrote the screenplay with Francine Rivers. The film is based on Rivers' 1991 novel of the same name, which was based on the Biblical story of Hosea, and is set in the American Old West during the California Gold Rush. It stars Abigail Cowen, Tom Lewis and Logan Marshall-Green.

The film was co-produced by Pinnacle Peak Pictures, Mission Pictures International, and Nthibah Pictures, and was filmed in Cape Town, South Africa. It was theatrically released by Universal Pictures on January 21, 2022, and received generally negative reviews from critics. Redeeming Love was nominated for the GMA Dove Award for Inspirational Film/Series of the Year at the 2022 GMA Dove Awards.

Plot
During the California Gold Rush, a beautiful young woman called Angel works as a prostitute in the fictional town of Pair-a-Dice. Despite being the object of desire for the local men, she survives through hatred and self-loathing. Meanwhile, a visiting farmer named Michael Hosea prays for God to send him a wife. Later that day, he sees Angel walking through town and falls in love at first sight.

Flashbacks reveal that Angel's real name is Sarah and that she knows only abuse from men. As a child, she overhears her father, Alex Stafford, saying that she should never have been born. Sarah learns that her father is married and her mother, Mae, is his mistress. Alex eventually cuts off support for Mae, obliging her to become a prostitute and eventually become sick and die. Distraught, Sarah rejects her mother's faith. Afterward, Mae's pimp sells an 8-year-old Sarah to a man named Duke, who renames her "Angel" and forces her into prostitution. One night, when Angel is a teenager, one of her customers is her father, and she knowingly has sex with him to punish him for how he treated her mother. He does not recognize her, but when he finds out the next morning, he commits suicide. This prompts Angel to escape from Duke. She arrives in California with hopes of beginning a new life but, penniless, once again becomes a prostitute at a brothel there.

In the present day, when Michael enters Angel's room and tells her he wants to marry her, she is thrown off-guard but remains aloof toward him. It is not until after she is nearly beaten to death by a brothel guard, that she agrees to marry Michael and leaves with him. He nurses her back to health at his home, despite her continued aloofness toward him. Michael continues to surprise her as he claims to love her as his wife, and refuses to have sex with her. Afraid to trust him, she runs away at her first opportunity, but Michael finds her and convinces her to come home.

As the two begin their life on the farm, Angel develops feelings for Michael but runs away again when she realizes that he wants children, as she believes herself to be sterile. She gets a ride with Michael's brother-in-law, Paul, who resents her because of her past and demands that she pay him for the ride by having sex with him. Back in Pair A Dice, Angel reluctantly returns to the brothel to get the gold she is owed, from Duchess. She finds that the brothel had been burned down by Macgowan with the Duchess, Lucky and Mei Ling inside. With no money and no place to live, she reluctantly goes back to prostitution with one of the town's bar owners. When Michael arrives to rescue her from her employers, she is relieved to return home with him. He forgives her, and their relationship begins to blossom based on honesty and affection.

As Angel falls in love with Michael, she becomes convinced that he will be happier married to someone else who can have children, leading her to leave him once more. Having learned to cook while with Michael, she is able to get a job at a cafe in the city rather than returning to prostitution. However, by chance, she encounters Duke, who has relocated to California. He compels her to return to prostitution by threatening the life of her employer. He places her on a stage in his new establishment for his patrons to view. There, in a moment of desperation, she regains the faith she lost after her mother's death and tells the audience about Duke's sexual trafficking of young girls. Duke denies the allegations and attempts to murder Angel, but an African American man, implied to be an old friend of Michael's, subdues him and the captive girls escape into the audience, resulting in Duke being lynched by an outraged mob. Afterward, Angel starts a successful mission to help rehabilitate other young prostitutes.

Three years later, Paul finally comes to find her and tells her that Michael still loves her. Angel returns home to Michael, offering her love and revealing her real name. They reunite and are shown to eventually have children.

Cast

 * Abigail Cowen as Angel/Sarah
 * Tom Lewis as Michael Hosea
 * Logan Marshall-Green as Paul
 * Wu Kexi as Mai Ling
 * Livi Birch as Sarah Stafford
 * Famke Janssen as Duchess
 * Nina Dobrev as Mae
 * Eric Dane as Duke

Production
The film was shot in Cape Town, South Africa in February 2020. The film itself was announced in April 2020, with D.J. Caruso directing and Roma Downey and Francine Rivers executive producing. Rivers also wrote the script, along with Caruso. Redeeming Love marks the second collaboration between producers Cindy Bond and Simon Swart, the first being 2018's I Can Only Imagine. Wayne Fitzjohn, Michael Scott, and Brittany Yost also produce.

Release
Redeeming Love was originally scheduled to be released in spring 2021. However, it was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The film was released in theaters on January 21, 2022, in the United States and Canada.

The film was released for VOD platforms on February 8, 2022, followed by a Blu-ray and DVD release on March 8, 2022. It was available for streaming on Peacock beginning March 10, 2022.

Box office
Universal Pictures put the film went into wide release, in 1,903 theaters, on January 21, 2022. Projected to gross less than $5 million domestically in its first three days, it earned $3.5 million in its opening weekend, finishing fourth at the box office. The film dropped out of the box office top ten in its fourth weekend, finishing twelfth with $354,835. The film was a box office bomb, taking in $9.46 million worldwide, against a budget of $30 million.

Critical response
On Metacritic, the film has a score of 32% based on reviews from 7 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.

Mike McCahill of The Guardian gave the film 2/5 stars, saying it "thinly scatters a parable's worth of plot across 134 minutes and resembles HBO's Deadwood recut for Sunday-school purposes: pious, puzzling and punitive, with a sternly wagging finger never far from entering the frame." RogerEbert.com's Nell Minow gave it 2/4 stars, writing, "The biggest problem is that the most touching moments are hammered so hard. Redeeming Love could have tried to reach a broader audience but settles for preaching to the choir." The A.V. Club's A. A. Dowd criticized the love story as "icky", saying it "hinges on a fundamental power imbalance: Angel literally can't say no to Michael's evening visits... and when she finally does accept his proposal, it's while lying bruised and battered after one of her employer's thugs beats her within an inch of her life." He gave the film a grade of D+.

The Mercury News's Randy Myers gave it a score of 2.5/4, writing, "Love might be best embraced by the faithful, but it is well made and has much to say about the healing power of love and how we all deserve second chances."