I Can Only Imagine

Bart Millard grows up in Texas with a violent father. His mother leaves and the boy stays. A football injury pushes him into a choir class, where he discovers he can sing. Years later he tours with his band and the songs go nowhere. Then his father falls ill and the man changes. The subject is not music but whether forgiveness is possible. The film does not absolve the father; what he did is shown in detail and Bart forgiving him is not staged as an easy scene. The song that gives the film its title was written in that period, in ten minutes. The form is unshowy American biography: flashbacks, concert sequences, family rooms. The production became one of the highest earning examples of American faith-based cinema, taking far more than expected against a small budget. The brothers Jon and Andrew Erwin directed and became a team working regularly inside the genre. The song is among the best selling records in Christian music. J. Michael Finley plays Bart and Dennis Quaid his father; Quaid's performance is the most praised thing in the film. Who it is for: viewers who like faith-based drama and musician biography. Who it is not for: anyone troubled by a violent father being redeemed easily in the last section; the film makes that turn fast.