The Movie "Fireproof"

I hate central Florida's Christian radio station. It plays old, peppy, effusive songs with little variation and less regard for persistent, deep problems in people's lives. Needless to say, playing worship music as background music is one of my pet peeves. I say that so no one thinks I'm a Christian culture pushover. There are great songs (with great music videos), of course, but they aren't all.

And there are good movies, too. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Fireproof (here's the trailer) wasn't bad. If you haven't seen it yet, you probably won't, but here's the plot spoiler warning anyway: may reference scenes not in the trailer. Plot "spoiler" is actually too hefty for this fairy tale kind of story: a firefighter is good at his job, bad at his marriage. His dad who recently converted asks him to follow a 40 day plan before he goes through with a divorce. It's a difficult plan to follow. The wife cries. And at the end of the story, guess how their marriage is?

One thing I found fascinating, actually, is how the story didn't have to end happily. I would've loved to see them play out the relationship if his heart had warmed toward her and she still pushed him off. Or if he couldn't carry out the plan and they both ended up embittered. Or if he couldn't finish the steps but she still saw the light. See, Christianity isn't a bubble of church-approved stories that will pop a positive witness to the world if a story doesn't end cheerily enough. The story has a happy ending, but not all of them do.

Still, Fireproof did a very good job portraying the reality of a normally bad marriage. The every-day mutual insistence on self-satisfaction that cements separation. She doesn't leave dinner for him; he doesn't tell her his plans. She starts flirting with a doctor; he can't stop looking at porn. It's all one-sided, of course. By that I mean any third-party observer can see that she's always right, and I think in real life it's grayer than that. But he's the bad guy, so let him be the bad guy.

The challenge in evaluating the movie is that there's a difference between saying things that are false and not saying everything that's true. A movie is not a theological treatise, so I give it a lot of leeway in not presenting every trial and urge and doctrine and pitfall of the faith. There was a lot of struggle shown when their marriage was failing. Nevertheless, I wish they would have shown any of the Christians sin.

Once the Caleb, the main character, converts, he is able to, in one unceasing rush of effort, stop his addiction to porn, love his wife, not even beat up the guy she's seeing, give up his dream of owning a boat, and have unflagging patience with her resistance to his attempts. It's a little too heroic. It would have only taken an extra line or two for him to sin, repent to his flawless firefighting buddy, and been told that sin is a struggle for life.

That's my main critique. I have other comments that don't fit in really well. I was impressed that about half our audience was black. I think the racial relations in the movie might have been one of its best features. White Christians and black Christians are afraid of each other, you know. The metaphors Fireproof drew between marriage and God were so powerful that I wondered how people share the message of Christ to unmarried people. I liked the way fire's symbolic meaning had inverted by the end from one of destruction to one of renewal. I hated the few songs they played in the background.

Oh, and one last thing. Dan took the bad acting as fundamental, but I saw the acting as unprofessional. That's not quite the same thing. There was one scene where an older woman who seemed really similar to my mom in like twenty years (but cheesier) confronts the wife on her lunches with the doctor. The woman wasn't trained as an actor, but she meant what she said. You could tell that she was wise--I read that they cast lots of roles after people volunteered from a flier at church--and that gave a level of sincerity which was almost inartistic in its brute mimicry of life.

I'd be really curious to hear if the movie actually inspired couples to change their habits toward each other. With the kind of integrated (profit-garnering) approach they do--the movie, the book, church promotions, etc.--it might give the level of community support to a couple that would be needed to buttress an empty relationship while it undergoes renovation.