Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Religious Music & Entertainment
Hosea at the movies: Redeeming Love (dir. D.J. Caruso, 2022)

Hosea at the movies: Redeeming Love (dir. D.J. Caruso, 2022)

Last updated on: January 22, 2022 at 10:44 am by Peter T. Chattaway

Hosea at the movies: Redeeming Love (dir. D.J. Caruso, 2022) 2022-01-22T10:44:20-08:00 Peter T. Chattaway

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Has any “faith-based” film ever advertised itself with a sex scene before? I doubt it, but that’s basically what Redeeming Love does: the poster shows Angel (Abigail Cowen), a former prostitute, straddling her husband Michael (Tom Lewis) in the great outdoors while he places his arms around her waist, and while the characters do have their clothes on, anyone who has seen the film knows exactly what they’re doing in that moment. To the uninitiated, the image may be an innocent romantic come-on; but to those who know the movie – repeat viewers, perhaps – that image will always mean something more.

I have not read the 1991 novel on which this movie is based, but author Francine Rivers co-wrote the screenplay with director D.J. Caruso (Eagle Eye, xXx: Return of Xander Cage), and she has been actively involved in promoting the film, so I assume the film focuses on sex as much as it does at least partly because the fans expect it. Either way, it’s interesting how the film dwells on that, because it suggests a thirst for Song of Songs-style eroticism even in a story like this, which is based on a biblical text that is partly about the taming of sexual desire.

Redeeming Love, which is set in California during the 1850s Gold Rush, is the latest in a recent flurry of movies that are based on the Book of Hosea but move it to a modern (or, in this movie’s case, almost-modern) setting. The biblical story is about a prophet who marries a promiscuous woman and holds up their marriage as a symbol of God’s relationship with Israel: the nation is unfaithful and deserves to be punished, but God, despite his feelings of betrayal, is determined to take the nation back, even at great cost to himself (Hosea buys his wife back from slavery at one point). As I pointed out a few days ago, most films have ditched the prophetic-message symbolism and have focused on the marriage itself, and in doing so they have humanized both Hosea and his wife – making him more open to criticism, and making her more sympathetic. In these films, we are not asked to condemn Hosea’s wife but to understand her and the traumatic past that has brought her to this point.

Redeeming Love certainly follows the template insofar as creating sympathy for the wife is concerned; it adds more trauma to her back-story than all the other films combined. Angel (birth name Sarah, played as a child by Livi Birch) is the daughter of an unwed mother (Nina Dobrev) who, like Fantine in Les Miserables, ends up turning to prostitution to make ends meet – and when she dies, there is no one to save Angel from a similar fate the way Jean Valjean saved Cosette. Instead, Angel is sold into prostitution – she even witnesses the murder of the person who sold her – and she goes on to suffer rape, incest, forced abortion, and various other indignities before a man named Michael Hosea comes into her life and tells her, at their very first meeting, that he is going to marry her.

But if the film gives us extra reasons to see things from Angel’s point of view, it turns Michael – the Hosea figure – into an almost impenetrably perfect paragon of virtue. Maybe this is because Michael, like Hosea, is supposed to represent God himself. Or maybe it’s because Redeeming Love is, at heart, a fantasy about the perfect man coming into a woman’s life and slowly, patiently allowing her to resolve all of her problems.

Either way, it is very difficult to take Michael seriously as a person, because he just doesn’t have the interior life that Angel does. Early on, Michael asks God to give him a wife – someone to share his new farm with – and in his next scene, he sees Angel walking down the street with her bodyguard, and his instant smittenness isn’t affected one bit when someone informs him that that woman over there is a prostitute. “Lord, you most certainly have a sense of humour,” says Michael, and there is no indication whatsoever as to why Michael believes that that woman must be the one for him. Later scenes do show Michael wrestling with his emotions and asking God for the strength to hold back and let Angel make the right choices, but these scenes play like Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane; they don’t undermine the impression one gets that the character is fundamentally perfect.

Perhaps no scene sums up how differently Angel and Michael are developed in this film better than the one in which Angel says, “I’ve got too many demons,” and Michael replies, “My father was my demon.” He then goes on to explain that his father was a plantation owner who punished Michael for saying he was going to free the slaves some day. Angel’s “demons” are internal, but Michael’s, as far as we can tell, are external, and that’s that.

I hasten to add that Cowen and Lewis, the actors who play Angel and Michael, do what they can with the material. I was particularly impressed by the way Cowen balances Angel’s feelings of helplessness with her efforts to assert her sexual power even as that power is trapping her in a life she doesn’t want. Some critics have complained that Angel has very little agency, but I disagree; I think the film is quite clear that Angel is trying to find her agency but is constantly hemmed in by circumstance – by poverty, by thieves, by exploitative pimps and madams – and when Michael comes into her life and changes those circumstances, she responds the only way she knows how, by running away. As for Michael, well, Lewis plays him with all the sincerity he can muster, and his passion for Angel is certainly there. You feel for him, at least, when Angel’s actions hurt him.

Unlike the other Hosea movies, which portray religion itself as one of the things that can push their female protagonists away, Redeeming Love puts religion squarely on the side of the good. Michael has a Bible and prays in an empty church (admittedly, we never see him in any sort of religious community), while Angel’s narrative arc – including her rejection of God as a child and her ultimate embrace of him as an adult – is framed by images of her tossing and then reaching for her mother’s crucifix necklace. Angel and Michael are even visited by a family who represent “purity” to Angel, one of whom sings a folk song about Bible stories around a camp fire. In contrast, the primary villain of the story is a human trafficker who pursues Angel relentlessly – burning down her new places of employment like the serial arsonists in a Lemony Snicket novel – and is ultimately called a “father of lies”, which is a classic biblical name for the Devil (cf John 8:44).

There is a lot more that could be said about this film and how it plays with social, cultural, and historical expectations. On multiple occasions, Angel objects to the idea that marriage has made her some sort of “slave” to Michael, which he insists isn’t true, but this story actually takes place at a time when slavery still existed in the United States, and the film doesn’t really do much with that subtext (the story about Michael’s father aside). At one point, a black man helps some girls escape from a child sex trafficker, and the sex trafficker, who is white, is promptly lynched by a mob. (Would mobs back then have been so offended by the thought of sex with young girls? The age of consent in most states by the late 19th century was between 10 and 12 – and in Delaware it was as low as 7.)

And then there is the film’s approach to sex. At the visual level, Redeeming Love pushes the boundaries of PG-13 filmmaking and “faith-based” filmmaking alike, with contrived blocking that shields things from the eye even as it teases the imagination. (At one point, Michael even places his hand on Angel’s naked breast to hide it from the camera, which is worlds away from, say, Kirk Cameron’s refusal to even kiss actresses who are not his wife.) At the same time, however, the film pulls the interesting trick of saving the friskiest scenes for the marital sex, while keeping the prostitution out of frame. This is a striking departure from other movies that revel in adultery while keeping the husband-and-wife stuff tame if not downright boring (think, for example, of Ryan’s Daughter).

I can appreciate that the filmmakers needed to deal with the extreme sexual behaviour described in the Bible, which is something that earlier films like Oversold and Amazing Love haven’t really done. (People might spread rumours about the Hosea figure’s wife in those films, but we only ever see her with one other man in each film.) I can also appreciate that there may be a need, in a story like this, to redeem not just the individual person but the act of sex itself, and to centre both the story and the sexual experience in a female perspective, both of which are things the biblical story doesn’t do.

But if you’re going to ditch the prophetic message that is the Book of Hosea’s point, then at the very least I’d like to see some realistic human behaviour; if you’re going to tell a story about a man who dedicates his life to a complete stranger’s sexual salvation, you have to give me some sense of who he is and why he’s doing what he does. It takes two to tango, after all, and if I’m going to believe in a relationship, I need to believe in both partners as people. Instead, what we get feels like mere wish fulfillment.

–

Meanwhile, a few extra notes, organized like the notes in my last post:

Whose story is it? This is definitely Angel’s story, though it crucially ends with an image of family unity, which none of the other Hosea films I’ve looked at did.

Incidentally, just about everything in this story seems to revolve around Angel: there’s the villain who pursues her from town to town even though he must have many other sex slaves to manage; there are the brothel clients who buy lottery tickets to be with her (and specifically her!) for just a few minutes, which suggests she must be very good at her job despite her constant efforts to get out of it; there is the pure-hearted, infinitely-patient man who pops up out of the blue to take her away from all that for no discernible reason; and finally, the film even ends with a hint that something miraculous has taken place.

Children. Michael wants children but Angel has a secret: an abortion forced on her by the man who “owned” her has left her infertile. The last time she leaves Michael, it is not to return to a life of prostitution but to give Michael an opportunity to marry someone else who can give him children. In the end, Angel and Michael are reconciled and, it seems, they do have a child, possibly miraculously.

The other man (or men). In Oversold, the main rival for Sophi’s affections was Josh’s stepbrother; in Hosea, one of Cate’s former clients was a business partner of Henry’s. In Redeeming Love, one of the men Angel sleeps with after she marries Michael is Michael’s brother-in-law Paul, who was married to Michael’s now-dead sister.

Interestingly, unlike the other two films, which cast the “other men” as one-dimensional villains, Redeeming Love offers redemption for Paul just as much as it does for Angel. Before Angel sleeps with Paul, Michael tells him to go to church and “try to remember the man you were when you married my sister.” And afterwards, Paul ends up marrying another woman and apologizing to Angel for the way he treated her.

Also interesting: when Angel hears who Paul married, she protests that the woman in question was “pure” and thus not right for Paul – and so Angel has to learn to see past Paul’s lack of “purity”, just as Paul has had to learn to see past Angel’s own lack of same.

However, while Redeeming Love does go further than any of the other films in redeeming one of the female protagonist’s sexual partners, it also goes further than any of them in punishing some of the men who are responsible for her life in prostitution. Her father shoots himself in the head after he realizes he has slept with his own daughter, and the sex trafficker who pursues her and haunts her dreams is ultimately lynched by a mob.

Debt repayment. Recent films like Oversold, Amazing Love, and Hosea have all made a point of emphasizing the incredible cost to the Hosea figure personally when he pays his wife’s debts; in one film, he pays it with his inheritance and the proceeds of the sale of his house, and in another, he pays it by selling his stake in a business that he has spent years building up. These payments are all presented as the climaxes to their stories.

Redeeming Love, on the other hand, has almost zero interest in the cost of Angel’s financial debts. The financial debt matters to Angel, yes, but Michael pays it without batting an eye, the day he marries her and takes her out of the brothel. The real cost of the relationship to him throughout the film is an emotional one. (And the fact that he isn’t hurt financially allows the film to have a happier, more wish-fulfilling end than the other films.)

Christianity. See the main review above.

Other Bible passages. Angel’s mother dies while saying the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13). Someone sings a folk song – ‘Dry Bones’, first recorded in 1928 but possibly much older – that references the life of Enoch (Genesis 5:21-24) and God’s appearance to Moses at the burning bush (Exodus 3-4:17).

Curiously, while Michael Hosea owns a Bible and thus owns a copy of the Book of Hosea, he never comments on the parallel between himself and his namesake.

The film also opens with a quote attributed to Shakespeare (“All that glitters is not gold”; the actual word in The Merchant of Venice, Act II Scene 7, is “glisters”), and there is a scene in which Angel’s mother teaches her to read with a passage from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.

Sex. See the main review above.

Troubled homes. Angel’s mother was a married man’s mistress, and the man beat her for, among other things, keeping Angel instead of getting an abortion. Michael’s father beat him for wanting to free the slaves, and made him live with the slaves. The fact that they both had bad childhoods gives Michael a reason to tell Angel, “Sometimes you have to leave behind what you were born into to become who God meant you to be.”

Self-harm. Angel does not deliberately harm herself, but she does say she “chose to die”.

Connections with other Hosea movies. A human trafficker called The Duke is clearly associated with the Devil when someone calls him a “father of lies” (cf John 8:44). This parallels the depiction of Ethan in Oversold; at one point he dresses in red and looks out over Las Vegas and says “I own this town,” which, as Matt Page has noted, evokes the way Satan claimed jurisdiction over the kingdoms of this world when he tempted Jesus.

Angel prays to God for the first time when she’s in desperate need of help at the climax of the movie, after she has left Michael and found herself in The Duke’s clutches again. This parallels how Sophi prays to God for the first time at the climax of Oversold, after she has left Pastor Josh and she finds herself in Ethan’s clutches again.

The last time Angel runs away, Michael insists that he cannot “go after her”, as much as he wants to, because “she has free will. It has to be her choice” to come back. This parallels how Henry leaves two notes for Cate in the hospital in Hosea, one for if she decides to come back to their home, and the other for if she decides not to come back.

Angel tells Michael, “I’m so sorry for the pain that I’ve caused you,” and Michael says, “It’s the pain that brought us to this moment.” This parallels the bit in The Green Pastures where Hezdrel says God and men can both find mercy through suffering.

Previous Post

January 19, 2022

Hosea at the movies: three films from the early 21st century

Next Post

January 23, 2022 Box office: Redeeming Love opens small, but is the top new movie

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Anglican Planet Articles BC Christian News BC Report Bible Movies Bible Review Blog Books & Culture Campus Times CBC Radio Christianity Today ChristianWeek Essays Faith Today Festival Cinemas Guide Film Journals Georgia Straight Interviews MB Herald National Catholic Register Salvationist Today's Christian Two Chairs Ubyssey Uncategorized Vancouver Courier Vancouver Sun

Select a Month August 2025 April 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 May 2024 February 2024 December 2023 May 2023 March 2023 November 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 September 2019 July 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 April 2012 January 2012 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 November 2003 October 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 January 2003 December 2002 November 2002 August 2002 July 2002 June 2002 May 2002 March 2002 January 2002 December 2001 November 2001 September 2001 August 2001 July 2001 June 2001 April 2001 March 2001 February 2001 December 2000 November 2000 October 2000 September 2000 August 2000 July 2000 June 2000 May 2000 April 2000 March 2000 January 2000 October 1999 August 1999 May 1999 April 1999 February 1999 January 1999 December 1998 November 1998 October 1998 August 1998 July 1998 June 1998 April 1998 March 1998 January 1998 November 1997 September 1997 July 1997 June 1997 April 1997 March 1997 February 1997 January 1997 December 1996 October 1996 September 1996 June 1996 March 1996 February 1996 January 1996 April 1995 November 1994 September 1994 September 1991

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who was told to prophesy to the mountains and valleys of Israel?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Ezekiel Hosea Daniel Micah