The Future of LDS Cinema
The jokes are routine, the roles are recycled and the plot lines are always very, very Mormon.
There’s got to be something better coming.
Right?
This weekend, the fifth annual LDS Film Festival will fill the halls of the Orem cinema sanctum as aspiring directors, actors and screenwriters gather to showcase the best LDS-themed movies in the world.
Coincidently enough, they also happen to be the only LDS-themed movies in the world.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not out to belittle a floundering industry. Making a movie has gotta be tough; and making a commercially feasible niche film has gotta be doubly tough.
But that’s part of the problem: It’s a niche market.
No one else in the world, beyond certain film-savvy members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and a few straggling critics with nothing else to watch over the weekend, actually cares.
And after a smattering of the Jell-O filled smorgasbord that dominates this year’s festival, it’s not hard to see why:
“Suits on the Loose” – Two rebellious teenagers escape one of a juvenile detention camps, steal some missionaries’ clothes and a car and are mistaken by the town for bona fide Elders of the Latter-day persuasion. Seriously, another missionary movie? How many more zany-and-quirky-but-lovable missionary moments can they feasibly capture on film?
Never mind, I don’t want to know.
Other perilous journeys into cinematic boredom include “Salt Lake to Mesa,” a Mormon road-trip movie, “Believe,” a multi-level marketing mockumentary and “The Return,” which follows Elder Rowe McDonald as he is killed on his way home from a mission in a horrific accident and sent back to earth for sixty-days in order to baptize his wayward mother.
I’m just not seeing it.
Undoubtedly, there is top-rank talent and genius hidden in the ranks of the Latter-day Saint faithful, but if the LDS film industry is ever to reach its full potential, the focus needs to be on “film” and not on “LDS.”
Simply put, values of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the complex issues faced by it’s members can be excellent fodder for the silver screen without being so cultural-specific that only Latter-day Saints will watch.
There are a few potential bright spots at the festival this year – “Propensity,” a movie exploring the detrimental after-effects of suicide among them – and, with a little luck, this might just signal the beginning of a very Jello-less future.
Matt Wright is a critic at the Utah Statesman. Comments, questions and retorts can be sent to him at mattgo@cc.usu.edu.