Among the Christians who reacted badly to the movie adaptation of Francine Rivers’ Redeeming Love, I feel like the red-headed stepchild. Goodness knows, I didn’t set out to like the movie or the book.

I loved them both!

Back in the ’90s, my youth prevented me from appreciating the book. I can remember hearing about a book fictionalizing the historical narrative of Hosea and Gomer. That’s about all I can remember about it.

Reading the book and watching the film as an adult, I can appreciate it in a way my youthful self wouldn’t comprehend. Also, it’s a fascinating study of how a book can be better than the movie and how the movie can still take the essence of the book and effectively communicate the author’s message.

What was the message? A portrait of love.

Preconceptions

Before going into this book and movie, everyone had been weighing in on it. Apparently, from the way I heard it, Christians were in an uproar about the movie depicting ‘soft porn’ and ‘sex scenes’, semi-nudity, and some light swearing. I was under the impression it was going to be X-rated or something.

Reality

When I bought the book, I had no idea what to expect. Then I started reading it, and two things came to mind:

• Francine Rivers is a very good writer.
• Francine Rivers is prepared to tackle difficult subjects.

I was glued to the book for the first part. Then, I stopped reading it, not because I got bored, but because I couldn’t understand what people were upset about.

For myself, I have never believed Christian fiction is safe fiction. It can be, yes, but it’s up to the writer to decide what they will write. Some readers cannot handle gritty realism and prefer wholesome fiction. Some readers prefer it.

Cheaper Than Dirt

EVERYONE has an opinion. A salesman once said, “Opinions are cheaper than dirt.” Granted, everyone’s entitled to them, but in all honesty, unless you’re going to read the book or watch the movie, it’s better to have an informed opinion.

The Narrative of Hosea and Gomer

In the Bible, the Lord tells Hosea to marry a prostitute to illustrate how Israel prostituted themselves before other gods. Several times, Gomer leaves and Hosea has to go and bring her back, illustrating God doing the same for Israel as they kept up their idol worship.

For the sake of argument, I won’t go into if this narrative is allegorical or literal. People smarter than me can sling mud over that one.

The Story of Redeeming Love

I’ll give a summary of the story because some people won’t read the book or watch the movie.

Redeeming Love follows the story of a young girl named Sarah, who is the illegitimate daughter of a married man, and her mother is his mistress. When he gets tired of her mother, she gets kicked out of the house. Her mother becomes a prostitute on the docks and then suffers illness and dies. Eight-year-old Sarah is sold to Duke. He renames her Angel and rapes her continually until she gets to the ripe old age of thirteen when he no longer has an interest in her. Due to her uncommon beauty, she is highly sought after by men.

For me, that was more heartbreaking because many children are caught up in the arms of monsters. In church and out of it.

In the movie, there’s this heart-wrenching scene where she’s with the other women and she is dressed up in the same clothes as the grown women are, and she already looks so broken.

Even sadder was the trauma that followed her, that changed and warped her mind, because she believed the lies Duke had told her. That what he had made her was what she was meant for, all she was, and all she would ever be.

Michael Hosea is a farmer who trusts heartily in the Lord. When he sees her in the town, he falls immediately in love with her. She rejects him thinking he’s just trying to act as if he’s not like the other men.

He shows his love for her in many ways, despite her resistance to it. After many events, revelations, and the like, Angel comes back to Michael, and she accepts his love for her.

Deviations from the Book

Michael’s character in the book is depicted less aggressively and unsure than in the movie.

At one point, Angel leaves and goes back to the brothel. In the middle of her doing the do, he comes and drags her out of the room, enraged. He’s upset when he finds her with someone else. In fact, in his thoughts, he’s so angry he thinks he wants to hit her. But these are only his feelings and he recognizes that.

The same part in the movie has him going to her room and right before she goes to do the do, he comes in and asks her if she wants to stay. This makes him more palatable for the contemporary moviegoer.

When Michael first makes love to Angel as her husband, he’s very unsure of himself. He’s a virgin, after all. In the scene, he makes Angel say his name. This is because when she’s working, every man is simply ‘mister.’ He wants her to say his name as he makes love to her. So, he basically commands her to say his name.

This is another thing that changed from the book. In the love scene, she says his name because she wants to, not because he commanded her. Although it does get heated, they were able to convey Angel getting pleasure from Michael rather than the other way around.

A complaint about the book is that Michael shows signs of an abuser. I tend to think of it as a sign of what was typical of literature in the nineties. After the bodice rippers of the late ’70s and ’80s, ideas of consent were changing the nature of romance.

I can almost bet money the author didn’t think she was writing an abusive character at the time. It’s possible, as I don’t remember because I was a kid back then, but her book would have been quite radical. Yet, as most writers do as they mature, she’s learned some things. This is reflected in how the movie was updated to show a gentler Michael.

Duke is far more heinous in the book. He’s bad in the movie, too, but way worse. In the book, his penchant for young girls is exposed, but in a more ‘spiritual’ way, meaning that God orchestrated a number of events to put people at the right place at the right time. In the movie, she gets on the stage and tells it all. I felt this was a better way to expose him and then he gets hanged.

Other Thoughts

Most of the outrage focused on the sensuality depicted. As a viewer, I really enjoyed the movie, something I thought wouldn’t happen. I agree with another person that the movie tried to please both Christian and non-Christians thus pleasing no one.

Could the filmmakers have cleaned up some of the sensuality in the movie? Sure. To illustrate, I have to pull an example from a secular thriller movie called ‘Till Death’ starring Megan Fox. In the movie, her sex appeal was heightened without her having to take off a stitch of clothing. There’s a scene where she’s kissing her husband right before the camera fades to black. She simply arches her back in a seductive pose and that’s that.

There were ways the sensuality in Redeeming Love could have been depicted to a lesser degree, but I don’t believe it would have been realistic.

If you want to read the author’s responses to having those sensual scenes, click here.

At the end of the book, when Angel returns, she takes all her clothes off as she goes toward him, symbolically making herself Eve to her Adam. I can see how some wouldn’t like this ending.

In the movie, she’s fully clothed and walking towards him, making it more about her choice to come back to Michael as opposed to a symbolic Eve being a gift to him.

All in all, I enjoyed both the book and the movie. Were either of them perfect? No. But they both told a good story, flaws and all.