Film Review: REDEEMING LOVE (2022): Corny, Overlong, and Slow-Moving Film is Also Quite Intriguing

Redeeming Love Review

Redeeming Love (2022) Film Review, a movie directed by D.J. Caruso and starring Abigail Cowen, Tom Lewis, Famke Janssen, Logan Marshall-Green, Nina Dobrev, Livi Birch, Eric Dane, Brandon Auret, Jamie-Lee O’Donnell, Josh Taylor, Willie Watson, Tanya van Graan, Ke-Xi Wu and Clyde Berning.

Director D.J. Caruso’s Redeeming Love is a sweet movie which has a big heart and is usually intriguing to watch thanks to its compelling story line. It’s corny for sure, at times slowly paced and it is overlong by about twenty-five minutes but, as a PG-13 romance film, it kind of works for whatever reason. Maybe it’s because the stars are so immensely likable in their roles even if they are not particularly believable in every scene throughout the 2 hours and 14 minutes movie. Still, romance fans may find themselves pleasantly surprised by the movie’s ability to hold their interest throughout the movie’s plot. I’m not saying, artistically speaking, that it’s a very good film but it entertains.

Based on a novel by Francine Rivers and set in California during the 1850’s, this film stars Abigail Cowen as Angel, a young woman who is a prostitute. Angel has had a hard life ever since her mother Mae (Nina Dobrev) was taking care of her. Angel’s dad (Josh Taylor) didn’t want to have Angel and Mae struggled to raise her even going as far as to become a prostitute herself. Enter a farmer named Michael Hosea (Tom Lewis) who sees Angel and is in awe of her from the moment he lays eyes on her. He wins a chance to be Angel’s customer and tells her that he’s smitten by her. Angel, at first, would rather just have sex with him and get him out the door.

The brothel where Angel works is co-run by Duchess (Famke Janssen) and offers working-class men the opportunity to be with Angel through a lottery. Angel has friends there too. They are also working girls. For example, Jamie-Lee O’Donnell portrays Lucky, a typical sex worker with a heart of gold who dreams of a better life herself. Eventually, Angel leaves the brothel to go with Michael who promises her a better life.

This film explores the relationship between Michael and Angel as they try to forge a relationship with many obstacles to happiness thrown in along the way. Logan Marshall-Green serves as Michael’s brother, Paul, and he’s a problem both in the film’s plot and in the film’s execution of the plot. I never believed that Paul, who conveniently for the story recognizes Angel as a hooker, would be so cruel to his brother that he would have sex with Angel himself nor did I believe that Paul would want to sabotage his brother’s romance so desperately. However, even more illogical is that the brothers somehow work this situation all out by the film’s end.

Redeeming Love also showcases evil characters who also want to sabotage Angel’s life and her romance with Michael. They’re not believable and come across as cardboard cutouts but, nevertheless, this movie is interesting to watch. As far as stories about prostitutes go, it’s certainly no Moulin Rouge! but it has its moments if you can put up with the sluggish pace the movie adapts at times.

Most likely for the film to get the PG-13, Angel’s hair had to cover her breasts in the nude scenes, so her hair is always over her breasts in these sequences, and this fact helps tarnish the film’s authenticity factor significantly, but romance viewers won’t need authenticity to enjoy this movie. This film has so many cute moments between the stars Cowen and Lewis that the targeted crowd may find some of this movie slightly worthwhile.

Lewis and Cowen have some nice chemistry together here although it’s not enough for the screen to sizzle as the filmmakers probably intended it to. Dobrev is effective and somewhat believable in flashbacks as Angel’s mom and the movie keeps us interested to see if the two mismatched lovers of the film can find romance together. They’re certainly good-looking enough for each other but they come from different worlds. We’ve seen this story before, but this film somehow reeled me in through the plot which is, still, as corny as they come.

Famke Janssen has her moments as Duchess, but she probably had some scenes left on the cutting room floor if the depth of her role (or lack thereof) is any indication. Marshall-Green plays a bad brother efficiently, but I didn’t care for the character enough to want to see Michael and Angel accept him back into their lives.

Redeeming Love is a harmless movie for romance fans. It doesn’t offer anything new or exciting in terms of great romance, but it can hold your interest if you’re willing to invest the two-hours plus it requires to make it through the film to the end. If you do make it all the way through, you’ll find minor rewards and won’t feel like you entirely wasted your time watching this film.

Rating: 6/10

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