"I'm not going to Apologize about doing a job that Helps Women in Crisis" Unplanned Review

Unplanned

4.5/5

Directed by: Chuck Konzelman and Cary Solomon

Rated: R

           Abortion; it's what you think it is. It is likely that everyone has their own understanding and stances on it. Abby Johnson is one woman who like anyone else has her own thoughts and stance on abortion. She worked for eight years within one of the biggest non-profit abortion providing clinical institutions, Planned Parenthood, was honored in her work, promoted to high status and then left all of it. Why? It was a moment; a series of moments coming together. It was one thought; a lifetime of thoughts converging into a belief. The truth of her story is in theatres and what she saw will impact how you see abortion.
           Unplanned stars Ashley Bratcher as Johnson, who excellently portrays the highs and lows of Johnson's career; her victories and her defeats. What stands out most about Bratcher's performance is her eyes, which openly welcome audiences deep into her life story of conflict in her conscience and perseverance in her principles. The quality of Bratcher's performance is matched by the film's other aspects. Scenes are well directed and engaing complimenting the film's captivating screenplay. Though the screenplay features voice-over narration (which most viewers consider a tropic narrative device), Unplanned utilzes this to provide neccessary personal commentary serving to bring audiences deeper into Johnson's experiences as well as their own. Unplanned's imagery is its most thought provoking aspect, asking audiences to question what they consider abnormal/natural or unconventional/commonplace. Though the film does feature minor pacing issues, wherein similar dialogue heavy scenes can make audiences disengage from the film for up to five minutes, Unplanned features no marring or glaring faults with its technical and cinematic aspects. This is impressive, when it is considered which company produced this film.

Abby Johnson's best
selling book "Unplanned"
inspired this film's story.

           Unplanned was produced by Pure Flix, an American production company that primarily produces Christian thought based films. They arrived on the public scene when they released God's Not Dead (2014) which received flack followed by two more sequels and more flack. Pure Flix also produced a lesser known film titled Do You Believe? (2015), which was a mish mash of poorly interwoven character stories. Needless to say Pure Flix produced few worthwhile feature length stories, until in 2016 when they released a bio-graphical feature, I'm Not Ashamed (2016), telling the story of Rachel Joy Scott, the first student killed in the Columbine High-School shooting of 1999. This movie along with the superior The Case for Christ (2017), the life changing story of journalist Lee Strobel, showed Pure Flix had a knack for adapting compelling real life Christian stories. Pure Flix's growth as a production company is more evident than ever through Unplanned, a mature and provocative bio-graphical film. Having ranked number four in its opening weekend at the box office, Unplanned shows Pure Flix is capable of telling amazing and memorable real life stories.
           Pure Flix's films have always strived to offer relative Christian based commentary on present and important topics. Though Pure Flix's past films have depicted people on one side of a topic as righteous and people on the other side as wicked, Unplanned takes no hard stances on its portrayal of women who have had abortions or have worked in providing abortions. Neither does the film show abortion procedures as being safe or dangerous. Unplanned depicts abortion procedures with a sense of genuine earnestness that does not seek to scare or assure. The film simply desires to relay the truth of Abby Johnson's story. In spite of this film's R rating, this film about the shocking topic of abortion does not play up its possible "shock factor." There are no sudden violent images; no cheap disturbing dream sequences. There is no gore, no anatomy and no profanity. Everything that is visceral and bloody (which there is visceral and bloody imagery) is shown with care, depicted with an authenticity that appears grounded in reality. Unplanned does not want to frighten its audiences. Unplanned wants to shake its audiences and make them think about their stance on abortion and how they will respond to this important topic.

Verdict: Unplanned tells the truth of Abby Johnson's story at Planned Parenthood, with an engaging lead performance and realistic graphic imagery, making it Pure Flix's most mature and compelling film.