The "Bella" bandwagon

I received a mass e-mailing from the Dallas Catholic Pro-Life Committee today, urging me to rush right out and support the film "Bella," telling me that if I go see the film, it will "make a big difference for life." From the mailing:

Please do whatever you can this weekend - please make a small sacrifice for a much greater mission - remember, Bella has already saved lives, and has the potential to save many more!!

Finally - please forward this message to everyone on your email list - even those in other cities who are hoping Bella will be able to open in their market! If everyone receiving this message would "Buy a ticket for Bella" this weekend, many more - millions more - hearts, minds and souls will be touched over the coming weeks!!

What's the deal? It seems that "Bella" is the story of a woman who becomes pregnant unwillingly, and is planning to have an abortion until her encounter with a failed soccer star convinces her to have the baby. The film is being promoted as a pro-life drama. And it's being viral-marketed to pro-life Christians, especially Catholics. I've got no particular problem with that, though I haven't seen the movie. I do resist, as a matter of temperament, any movie that takes on the trappings of a cause.

Well, Barbara Nicolosi, possibly the smartest and bravest Catholic in Hollywood, has a big problem with the "Bella" hype, and she's been writing about it on her Church of the Masses blog. She says "Bella" is kind of a swindle. Excerpt:

There has been an aggressive and, frankly, stupefying marketing blitz in the Catholic, pro-life universe for the film, and the folks behind the film have recruited an impressive number of good-willed, Catholic and pro-life notables to give the film a thumbs-up. I can't figure out where the momentum is coming from - as the film itself is not that good - except that everybody in Christendom is eager to support something in the culture instead of always saying "Bleck." (Which Christians really wouldn't have to always be saying if we paid attention better to the good work that is out there to be seen...but that's another post.)

So, we have ourselves a real-live, mind-numbing bandwagon going here to get behind Bella if you love Jesus and care about the babies! I have been contacted three separate times in the last two months trying to get me to say something in support of the film, and my response was, "Why do you need me? You have nearly the entire orthodox Catholic world telling you it's the greatest Catholic, pro-life film ever made?" A producer on the film subsequently left a message on my voicemail noting that my refusal to support the film had its source "in the demonic." Really? "Demonic"? It couldn't just be that I found the film plodding, easy, sloppy and uneven?

In short, I don't think Bella is great. It's not really "Catholic" (in the sense of overt spirituality). And it really isn't pro-life (in the usual sense of that term). Is it the worst film ever made? No. I'm not saying that at all. It is a first-time project from some filmmakers with clear potential, that has some nice moments and certainly loads of good intentions behind it. But is it great cinematic story-telling, or even really good cinematic storytelling deserving of all the raves it is getting? No.

What is going on is a wildly over the top marketing blitz in which the investors in Bella are trying desperately to recoup their investment, by telling good Catholic people that they must support this film to send a message to Hollywood. As with so many other mediocre Christian movies, the only "message" that Hollywood will get if Bella does well, is that the Christian audience has no idea what a good movie is and will rave about anything that remotely mirrors our world-view.

What's more, she's suspicious that "Bella" backers are conducting a deceptive marketing campaign to inflate the movie's numbers. After receiving a deranged e-mail making claims that would make even a publicist blush, Barb asks, cheekily:

But you know what is even more amazing than all of the above? Most mind-blowing is that the "#1 MOVIE IN THE WORLD!" could, after a week in release, be just hitting $1.5 million at the box-office. How can that be? Somebody help me out here.

Anybody here seen "Bella"? What do you think?