Within two minutes of starting this movie, my family and I wondered if we should turn it off. The acting is painful. The script is horrible. The direction is terrible. We ended up watching it all, trying to understand how something can go so horribly wrong when the source material is so rich and wonderful. The theory we came up with is this: in too many Christian movies the characters can't actually be human beings. Case in point: Naomi has to be this perfect saint from frame one to the end. This leaves her nowhere to go when her husband and two sons die. She tells her neighbor to call her Mara, but we see no bitterness in her. She just sails along in her saintly manner.
"What were they thinking!?" moments:
At what is supposed to be one of the most powerful moments of the story, Ruth runs after Naomi to tell her, "Where you go, I will go...", but right before she says those lines, she dives at Naomi's feet and Naomi does this exaggerated AAAAAHHHH! scream. It's not at all in keeping with the mood of the scene.
They made Boaz a sleazeball. Yes.
HAIR AND MAKEUP HAIR AND MAKEUP. This was a conscious decision that they made.
Uncle Neb, the muppet. They had left the cartoon villain of Ruth's mom behind, so they needed another cartoon villain.
The crowd doing the corniest "YAY!" at the announcement of Boaz's intent to marry Ruth.
Random narration appears late in the movie. It does not help.
Christians need to hold Christian art to a higher standard.
Christians need to hold Christian art to a higher standard.