When I started the review section of my blog, I never really intended on doing anything outside of Christian children’s book… but last night I watched a movie on Amazon Prime that I think would benefit parents (young and old alike) to watch- Like Arrows.

Movie Title: Like Arrows

Director: Kevin Peebles

Summary: This movie follows a young couple’s parenting journey showing the difference of adding faith to your life/parenting verse living a life of faith with vision for your children. The summary below does provide some spoilers, so if the above got your attention, go ahead, skip this, and watch the movie… If not, keep reading.

The movie begins as Alice tells Charlie that she is unexpectedly pregnant which is completely outside their plan. These two lovebirds decide to go all in, get married, and raise their son. Alice is overwhelmed with the idea of becoming a mom so young and afraid to turn into her own mom. So, when a young nurse, Teresa, invites Alice to church, she convinces her husband to go expressing the desire for community and help. Teresa and Kenneth quickly become life-long friends with Charlie and Alice. While they do attend church together, we can easily see Alice and Charlie have added Christianity to their lives. They deal with the stresses of parenting in worldly ways including overworking and seem to ignore biblical advice.  The movie quickly progresses through Ronnie’s (the oldest) childhood showing the chaos and lack of parental involvement. The family grows to a family with four kids, one adopted from China. Ronnie is very smart and receives a full ride to college. Dad is always working. So, when Ronnie leaves for college his mom is left saying goodbye alone. Unfortunately, as she is reminiscing on a baby picture, she spots a book authored by a professor at his new college alluding to the fact that Ronnie believes Christianity to be a myth.  Curious as to what else he is hiding; she looks in the glove box and finds drugs. Ronnie tells his mom that she did her job. She raised him up right. He didn’t get into trouble. He has a full ride to college. She did good. He storms out of the driveway and chooses to not speak to his family again. Very soon later, Kate, who is now 15, finds herself looking for trouble through sneaking out to date an older guy.

A change needs to be made. They need help. As Charlie is talking to Kenneth, Kenneth admits to making mistakes too, though he has been diligent to teach his kids spiritual disciplines. Kenneth suggests they attend a parenting seminar at their church. So, the two couples attend the seminar, Alice and Charlie start making their faith a way of life, and radical change occurs in their lives.

My Thoughts: Maybe it was just a timely watch, but this movie moved me. It is loaded in biblical truth regularly quoting the Bible. It also shows the radical differences of parenting within cultural standards and parenting intentionally through faith.

The message and content of this film is excellent. I would highly recommend it to anyone, especially parents!

The only negative element is the acting. There are areas where the acting is poor. The lead characters are great and believable, but the kids are not always. However, this is easily overlooked if you are looking for the message.