This movie provokes a comparison with "God is (not) dead" (GIND) which arguably had a similar message. However, while GIND tried to convince us intellectually that faith is good, Do You Believe? (DYB) targets our emotions, which makes much more sense. You cannot win the argument for god intellectually, given that there is neither measurable evidence nor logical support for a deity. Philosophers have tried for centuries and failed.
Unfortunately DYB uses one trick GIND already used before: in both movies the non-believers were depicted as cold, rational, and dead hearted. (let's face it, the non-believer in GIND was a a real asshole). This is not only unrealistic but quite unfair, not the least because the non-believers hardly had a say.
I wonder whether this movie represents Christians realistically: by and large, they were a sorry lot. Either homeless, ex-criminals, cash-strapped, or low-middle class folks who really needed some divine help to make ends meet. Those who were better off were an older couple who lost their child, or a pastor and his wife who suffered from infertility. As a non-religious person I constantly thought "yeah, please help them, god, they really need a hand!". Sure enough, some of the characters were suicidal. While all this misery is obviously not quite true for the majority of American Christians it certainly reflects the state of religious people on a global scale: the more miserable people's lives are, the more religious they are. Not surprisingly, the two secular protagonists were a lawyer and a doctor, well-off educated folks who do not depend on their religion to solve their rather mundane problems.
Believers will like that the independent histories of a dozen people have all their stories joined in the grand finale, almost magically as if the strings had been pulled by god himself. There is even a happy ending, with the cancer patient magically cured, the childless couple ending up with a baby girl, and the suicidal singles finding each other. But I always wonder why a god can't do his magic without killing a bunch of innocent bystanders along the way. For an almighty, merciful god this would only require a click of his fingers. But as believers have known all along — subtle is the Lord !
PS: the actors did a great job. All of them were truly credible even if the screenplay had too many quirks for my taste.
Unfortunately DYB uses one trick GIND already used before: in both movies the non-believers were depicted as cold, rational, and dead hearted. (let's face it, the non-believer in GIND was a a real asshole). This is not only unrealistic but quite unfair, not the least because the non-believers hardly had a say.
I wonder whether this movie represents Christians realistically: by and large, they were a sorry lot. Either homeless, ex-criminals, cash-strapped, or low-middle class folks who really needed some divine help to make ends meet. Those who were better off were an older couple who lost their child, or a pastor and his wife who suffered from infertility. As a non-religious person I constantly thought "yeah, please help them, god, they really need a hand!". Sure enough, some of the characters were suicidal. While all this misery is obviously not quite true for the majority of American Christians it certainly reflects the state of religious people on a global scale: the more miserable people's lives are, the more religious they are. Not surprisingly, the two secular protagonists were a lawyer and a doctor, well-off educated folks who do not depend on their religion to solve their rather mundane problems.
Believers will like that the independent histories of a dozen people have all their stories joined in the grand finale, almost magically as if the strings had been pulled by god himself. There is even a happy ending, with the cancer patient magically cured, the childless couple ending up with a baby girl, and the suicidal singles finding each other. But I always wonder why a god can't do his magic without killing a bunch of innocent bystanders along the way. For an almighty, merciful god this would only require a click of his fingers. But as believers have known all along — subtle is the Lord !
PS: the actors did a great job. All of them were truly credible even if the screenplay had too many quirks for my taste.