It’s too innocuous to be “bad,” but it certainly belongs to the category of mediocre, wholesome, vaguely Christian movies with country soundtracks that they’re hoping people will watch because they like those things. Adapted from Heidi McLaughlin’s novel and directed by Bethany Ashton Wolf, it’s about young country superstar Liam Page (Alex Roe), who returns to his Louisiana hometown eight years after leaving his high school sweetheart Josie (Jessica Rothe) at the altar, and finds he has a daughter he never knew about. She’s a precocious li’l scamp named Billy (Abby Ryder Fortson), and she might be the key to helping Liam make amends with Josie, his pastor father (John Benjamin Hickey) and the other people he walked out on. With no one else vying for Josie’s affection, there’s little conflict to the story beyond Liam’s internal “What if I’m a bad person who doesn’t deserve forgiveness?” struggle, so we spend most of the movie just waiting for him and Josie to patch things up, and for him to give a satisfying explanation for why he left in the first place (which he never does). Agreeably bland.
By
Eric D. Snider