Christian Mingle: The Movie is basically a cute-meet rom-com. Gwyneth (Lacey Chabert) is feed up with dating and ends up signing up to the eponymous website despite the fact she's not an evangelical Christian.
She ends up meeting Paul (Jonathan Patrick Moore) and what follows is a series of small calamities as she dives into the deep-end of a religious community of which she knows nothing. There are several funny fish out of water moments.
At the same time her relationship with Paul is blossoming, she's having trouble at work, her boss Douglas (the wonderful Stephen Tobolwsky) and the firm has just been hired by Donny De Bona (John O'Hurly) to come up with an ad campaign for a new fake baldness cure. Her assistant at the firm Pam (Saidah Arrika Ekulona)is the only one who knows about her "double-life" on ChristianMingle at the firm, and strongly disapproves.
As happens in this type of movie, Paul and his family (David Keith, Morgan Fairchild) discover that Gwyneth has been fakin' her evangelical Christianity. Paul drops her like a hot potato and Gwyneth ends up joining a church and going on her own spiritual journey.
This leads to the faltering third act: there are two big problems with the third act: there is a conversation with God sequence that just seems unnecessary but even the conversation with God sequence would have been acceptable, if not for the worst moment in the movie, which blows up a lot of good will that Lacey Chabert has built with the audience as Gwyneth. Right before the final scene of the movie Gwyneth receives a letter from a young Mexican girl she helped mid-way through the movie, and the letter is read as a voice-over in a very strange and stilted accent. The movie ends with Paul and Gwyneth back together (of course) and with her now an English teacher in Mexico.
Ms. Chabert is as lovely and likable as always, quite funny at moments and believable, aside from the unnecessary conversation with God sequence. Mr. Moore is a little too stiff, but that may in part be because his character was written fairly stiff.
It's a movie I want to like more but the third act problems are too distracting. Still I give it a 7 due to Ms. Chabert's charming performance, and the presence of some great character actors.
She ends up meeting Paul (Jonathan Patrick Moore) and what follows is a series of small calamities as she dives into the deep-end of a religious community of which she knows nothing. There are several funny fish out of water moments.
At the same time her relationship with Paul is blossoming, she's having trouble at work, her boss Douglas (the wonderful Stephen Tobolwsky) and the firm has just been hired by Donny De Bona (John O'Hurly) to come up with an ad campaign for a new fake baldness cure. Her assistant at the firm Pam (Saidah Arrika Ekulona)is the only one who knows about her "double-life" on ChristianMingle at the firm, and strongly disapproves.
As happens in this type of movie, Paul and his family (David Keith, Morgan Fairchild) discover that Gwyneth has been fakin' her evangelical Christianity. Paul drops her like a hot potato and Gwyneth ends up joining a church and going on her own spiritual journey.
This leads to the faltering third act: there are two big problems with the third act: there is a conversation with God sequence that just seems unnecessary but even the conversation with God sequence would have been acceptable, if not for the worst moment in the movie, which blows up a lot of good will that Lacey Chabert has built with the audience as Gwyneth. Right before the final scene of the movie Gwyneth receives a letter from a young Mexican girl she helped mid-way through the movie, and the letter is read as a voice-over in a very strange and stilted accent. The movie ends with Paul and Gwyneth back together (of course) and with her now an English teacher in Mexico.
Ms. Chabert is as lovely and likable as always, quite funny at moments and believable, aside from the unnecessary conversation with God sequence. Mr. Moore is a little too stiff, but that may in part be because his character was written fairly stiff.
It's a movie I want to like more but the third act problems are too distracting. Still I give it a 7 due to Ms. Chabert's charming performance, and the presence of some great character actors.