Even by the standards of Diane Warren films, Breakthrough is one of her most forgotten nominations. Obviously less people have seen Tell It Like a Woman and Four Good Days, but at least they got some online buzz specifically for being so unknown. Has anyone actually even mentioned this movie on here since the 2019/20 Oscar noms? Are we all aware that one of those "my child was in a horrible accident until Jesus saves them" movies has as many Oscar nominations as Jackie Brown?

Criticizing the morality of this movie would get way too complicated way too fast, so I'm just going to gloss over the idea that God can bring people back to life or whatever. But even ignoring all of that, Breakthrough's a total slog to get through and a really underwhelming version of a powerful real-life story.

This movie really, really didn't need to be 2 hours. In particular, almost everything after his miraculous recovery could be excised with almost nothing lost. They want provide a resolution for the son's pre-accident character flaws, but instead of, well, actually doing that, it spins its wheels for about fifteen minutes with pointless, unimpactful scenes of the son meeting the rescue worker, and talking about his experience at his Christian group, and blah, blah, blah. My best guess is that the filmmakers didn't want to attribute his rescue and recovery *solely* to God, but this

Occasionally, Breakthrough flirts with confronting deep questions, but not in any way that's substantial. Near the end, the age-old question of "why would God save this person and not others," is brought up and promptly ignored. The mother's constant confrontations with pretty much everyone but the pastor is portrayed ambiguously, but her perspective is ultimately validated by her son being brought back not by doctors, but through the power of love. And Jesus.

Speaking of Jesus, the entire element of Christianity is poorly integrated into the story. Most egregiously, the entire character of the pastor is a jumble of Bible preaching and trying to be a companion to a person he barely knows. He shows up IMMEDIATELY after the kid's accident, which (despite the fact that the two unpleasant conversations with the mother is the only time he's talked to the family, period) is treated as normal as opposed to really inappropriate. Can someone who's Christian tell me: is it normal for pastors to show up at family crises, even if they are totally unfamiliar with the family itself?

If I didn't know any better, I'd almost say that this was written to be a generic inspirational movie, with the religion added only through rewrites. Half the time you forget it's a Christian movie, until you're suddenly hit with a doctor turning to the camera and saying God is the only explanation for a child's recovery from death. You can't make a semi-Christian movie: either go all-in on your main theme or don't touch on it at all.

Overall, Breakthrough's a sea of boredom and bad writing with only some unintentionally hilarious lines to keep you awake. A few good performances can't save it. I can't say I had any expectations going in but I was still a little let down that it wasn't at least more memorable.

Moving on to "I'm Standing with You." Maybe it's because I've listened to 7 of the song at this point, but I'm Standing With You is one of the blandest songs I've heard in my life. Yeah, the lyrics and gospel choir vaguely fit the theme of the movie, but it's clearly just another basic credits song that's at the end of all of these stupid Christian movies. The first Diane Warren nomination that's actually awful. Y'all complaining about Applause and Fire Inside don't realize how much worse it could be.

Final Score: 42/100.