State of Grace

I watched this movie today on campus. It was amazing.

It's about two missionaries serving in Santa Cruz--one comes from a sheltered LDS family, the other is a converted gang member with a rough history who is counting down the days until he goes home. I don't want to summarize too much, but major conflicts in the movie are: gangs/loyalty, keeping rules vs. keeping commandments, learning to see everyone as children of Heavenly Father, overcoming family problems, keeping baptismal covenants, and forgiving oneself and others. The plot presented these conflicts in realistic events without the cheesiness that tends to be associated with LDS films. I felt like it was so real--types of issues and people that actually exist. Though it was a bit lengthy, it didn't feel like it was too long. It was a bit emotional (at least for me), and though I was near tears for a good chunk of the movie, there was plenty of comic relief.

Criticisms: A few parts at the beginning were a bit hard to visually focus on because of the movement of the camera. There were two scenes that had some weird lighting. There were a couple of discrepancies that made us think things like "Why isn't the elder wearing garments?" or "There's no way they would have an apartment with a view of the beach" but it didn't really interfere with the plot. Some might think the the amount of violence was inappropriate, but I thought it was very realistic and that it wasn't overdone or offensive.

Music: Really well done. The music always matched the setting and tone of the scene.

Other: There were plenty of good little subtleties that added to the main themes and tone of the movie. A lot of parallelism that was really well done, sometimes through the subplots interweaving, and other times visually.

Overall, I was thoroughly impressed. I will definitely be buying that movie when (if?) it's released on DVD.