I've noticed that if you Google oversold movie, for some reason, this site is the #5 hit, after the official movie site, a couple of YouTube Trailers, and Crissy Moran's MySpace page. That's kind of funny, since I only posted once about the movie, and until last week, I had not even seen it. But, since people seem to be finding my site looking for Oversold, and I have seen the movie now, I might as well write something about it!
What I liked:
Oversold is a powerful parable of the passionate heart of the God who so loved the world that He gave up everything to redeem sinful people to Himself. Crissy Moran (Sophie) and Stephen Zimpel (Joshua) play their parts well, and Pastor Dave Cowan does a solid job of explaining the Biblical story and how the parable illuminates it.
What I didn't like:
It was too short! 32 minutes just isn't enough time to do justice to the complexities of character development needed to give this story its emotional weight. But what they managed to accomplish in 32 minutes is effective.
Summary:
Watch it! It is an enjoyable movie, and this is a project well worth supporting. You can download it for iTunes here.
Review
I originally became interested in Crissy's story when I heard that she had left the adult movie industry after returning to her childhood faith in Jesus. I began to follow Crissy's blog on MySpace, and have been impressed with her honesty about her story and her bold witness for Christ since her repentance. (As you're reading this, please pause and pray a 20-second prayer for Crissy. She needs protection and the empowerment of the Holy Spirit for the stand she's taking.)
About six months ago, she posted that she was going to be in a movie again - only this time, with her clothes on, and in a movie that will glorify the Savior that she loves. The movie is a modern-day parable of redemption and the price that Jesus paid to win back His treacherous, adulterous bride. It is basically a video sermon on the first 3 chapters of Hosea, with narration by Pastor Dave Cowan from Elevation Church.
Joshua (Stephen Zimpel) is the young, single pastor of a small church, and is an easy-going, clean-hearted man. As the story begins, he is traveling to Las Vegas to meet up with a long-lost stepbrother, Ethan (Grant Henderson). Ethan, it turns out, isn't particularly interested in quality family time, but Joshua accidentally befriends a gorgeous woman in somewhat mysterious circumstances, whose name is Sophie (Crissy Moran). As Ethan continues to ignore Joshua, Sophie and Joshua become close and begin dating. And of course, it turns out that Sophie has been living a double life. She is in fact is Ethan's ex-girlfriend and works at night as a stripper.
Joshua is crushed, but then he is shocked to hear the still, small voice of the Lord tell him to marry Sophie, regardless of her background. He proposes, she says yes, they are married by Elvis in Vegas, and then things really get interesting...
As Dave Cowan frankly admits at the end of the movie, this retelling comes nowhere near the intensity and heart-wrenching agony that the Lord called the Biblical Hosea to endure. But even in the "Hollywood version" of Hosea's story, the beauty and glory of a lover who would sell all to win back his beloved comes through powerfully. I found myself weeping as Joshua chose to obey God in his own version of Hosea 3:1.
My only complaint about the movie is really just that it wasn't long enough to develop the characters. Sophie and Joshua have fairly real personalities, but Sophie's painful decision between the snares of her old life and the new husband that she loves was virtually skipped. Ethan is definitely a bad guy, but through a combination of too-short scenes and too-abrupt dialogue, he didn't really succeed in being a believable character. (For example, the line "I own this town," was more laughable than menacing.)
All in all, I would definitely recommend watching Oversold. It's $7.99 to download the low resolution version for iTunes, and I found that the low resolution version looked fine on my laptop screen.
