Jack of Harts

I watched Unplanned this weekend. Yes, that is the movie filmed from the perspective of a Planned Parenthood manager who became a Pro-Life activist after seeing an abortion in action. You may have heard that they Unplanned was banned from Twitter. Or that their ads were banned from major television networks Lifetime, HGTV, and Hallmark. Those banishments from major electronic media of the current day appear to have done nothing to hurt the film.

Unplanned sold far more tickets than expected, cresting well over six million dollars domestic, and appearing to slot into an impressive number five at the box office. Considering this was opening weekend for Dumbo, and the blockbusters US and Captain Marvel are still on screens, that’s an impressive hall in my book. One interesting bit I’ve noticed from scouring the Internet is that while Unplanned is in a quarter of the theaters that Captain Marvel is in, it actually is averaging more money per theater than the comic book movie. That’s an eye opener right there. And the movie that narrowly beat it for the number four slot made a third of the revenue per theater that Unplanned did. Another tidbit is that the only movie in the top ten with fewer theaters than Unplanned was Hotel Mumbai, which dominated the airwaves with ads and brought in half the haul.

Another point of interest is that most of the States where it did the best are in the Midwest or the South. You may now all don your shocked faces. Unplanned never tried to hide its message or its politics. So one would never expect it to do well or be accepted in places that are most mocking of its core values. What this movie does prove though is that there is a major market out there for movies that Hollywood and New York Do Not Approve Of. Other movies have come out in the last few years that have done similarly well, but few major movies to hit the theaters have been as staunch as this one on this particular issue. And a Christian movie that gains the Rated R status is rather rare. Even that did not stop it from having a very successful first weekend.

Reports I’ve read suggest that the company is going to put it in 600 more theaters next weekend based on this weekend’s results. That’s a bold strategy. We’ll see how that works out for them.

Now in all of this, I haven’t said what I thought about it. The shortest of all possible reviews would be to say that it is a powerful movie.

I think one of the best things it does is show people on both sides of the issue who are human and just want to help others. Not everyone who supports abortion is a baby-killing monster. And not everyone who opposes it has dreams of Handsmaid Tales dancing in their heads. Yes, there are monsters on both sides, and this movie shows them. But the people who inhabit most of the movie are the nice people with infectious smiles and joyful welcomes who are simply trying to help people. Which makes the monsters all the more stark in their portrayal.

It is a worthy movie to see. It made me laugh. It made me cry. Sometimes it made me do both at the same time. And considering the subject matter, that is I suppose the most fitting reaction to have.