October Baby

Year:  2011

Filming:  Color

Length:  107 minutes

Genre:  Christian/Drama/Inspirational/Romance/Travel

Maturity:  PG-13 (for intense thematic elements)

Cast:  Rachel Hendrix (Hannah Lawson), Jason Burkey (Jason Bradley), John Schneider (Dr. Jacob Lawson), Jennifer Price (Grace Lawson), Jasmine Guy (Nurse Mary), Shari Rigby (Cindy Hastings), Chris Sligh (B-Mac), Austin Johnson (Truman)

Directors:  The Erwin Brothers

Personal Rating:  3 Stars

***

    It is hard for pro-life films to be a success in a culture where abortion is all-too-often identified as a basic human right. I am confident that one day it will be a given that films will lament the horror of abortion, just as they rightly lament The Slave Trade and The Holocaust today. But that is all in the future, and it doesn’t help current Christian film-makers one bit. Hence, in spite of its many draw-backs, I cannot help but praise October Baby for its courage to look a glaring social injustice straight in the eye without flinching.

    Rachel Hendrix stars as Hannah Lawson, a freshman in college who begins to experience a strange series of physical and psychological ailments. When she takes part in a college drama and collapses on stage just after the curtain rises, she is rushed to the hospital where serious inquiries into her condition begin. The diagnosis states that all her symptoms are connected to the fact that Hannah had an extremely difficult birth. Not only that, but it is revealed that she is an abortion survivor and was adopted as a baby.

    Disillusioned and angry over what she perceives as a conspiracy and deception on the part of her adopted parents, Hannah seeks solace in her oldest friend, Jason Bradley, played by Jason Burkey. He invites her to come on a road trip with him and his quirky friends to celebrate Madi Gras in New Orleans, Louisiana. He also indicates that they might be able to stop off in Mobile Bay, Alabama, the place where Hannah’s birth certificate shows she was born.

    In spite of her Dr. Lawson’s opposition to the plan, he lets her make her own decision, and Hannah decides to take the opportunity to go in search of her biological mother and takes to the road. In the process, she meets geeky Truman and his hippy cousin, B-Mac, the owner of the broken-down mini van on which they embark. She also gets the chance to get into a hot head-on encounter with Jason’s catty girlfriend, Alanna, who is jealous of his affection for Hannah and accuses of her trying to get attention through her various medical conditions.

    Eventually, Hannah and Jason find themselves making the trek to Mobile alone, getting into various scrapes and misunderstandings along the way and discovering that they really do need each other in more ways than one. Finally reaching their destination in Mobile, Hannah meets Mary, the former nurse at the abortion clinic where she was almost killed. In the course of the meeting, it is revealed that she also had a twin brother who died as a result of the abortion mutilation not long after he was born. Mary also tells Hannah that her biological mother, Cindy Hastings, is still in Mobile.

    Determined to find her at any cost, she creates a heart-breaking scene in the legal firm where Cindy works and is coldly repudiated by her biological mother, who has been trying to hide from her past from many years. Immediately afterwards, Dr. Lawson makes an appearance and angrily whisks a disgruntled Hannah back home, blaming Jason for encouraging her to look into her past and paving the way for the painful incident. But what is done cannot be undone, and Hannah will need to experience an inner spiritual awakening before she can rejuvenate her life and her ability to love.

    October Baby is a relatively small-budget Christian film, with some decent cinematic aspects to speak of. The music score is not exactly in unison with my tastes, but the lyrics in and of themselves are nice and the theme, “Life Is Beautiful”, supports the overarching moral of the story. Some of the visual shots are were quite striking, and the use of slow-motions filming was particularly poignant  in the scene where Cindy leaves Hannah standing outside her office, and Cindy’s little girl waves at her broken-hearted half-sister before the car pulls away.

    It is always difficult to get the perfect balance that makes an appealing motion picture, especially when working with limited resources, and production values is this film are not exactly tops. Much of the acting in first half of the movie is obviously acting, and the plot sometimes seems forced to hammer home the message. For example, Dr. Lawson sending in Hannah’s diary entry to the doctor and her hysterical reaction just seemed a bit manufactured for drama, as did her head-to-head with Jason’s girl-friend.

    I honestly found Hannah’s character to be quite difficult to sympathize with through much of the film, and her “friend” Jason was a close second. In fact, a behind-the-scenes interview revealed that Jason Burkley and Rachel Hendrix actually had better chemistry off-screen than on! Maybe I’m being a little picky, but the relationship between their characters was teeny-bopper to the max and lacked the depth and dynamics that make friendships between guys and girls fascinating. Hannah seemed to be stuck in a perpetual state of whining, whilst clueless Jason enunciated such epiphanies as, “Well…hey….like….this must be…like….really terrible for you….”

    I was really hoping for more insightful dialogue and mature emotional responses from the characters when faced with the problems at hand. But therein lies one of the main blots in the whole feel of the film: most of main characters have a definite lack of maturity, including Hannah’s parents. Their relationship with their adopted daughter is often erratic, such as her father revealing her diary entry and later ordering Jason never to speak to Hannah again after he finds them in Mobile.

    Alternately, her parents can come off as being rather woosy, letting Hannah snap back at them almost every time they try to communicate wit her and skulk around with a blatantly bad attitude. And then there’s the issue of her father non-chalontly letting her “make up her own mind” about going on an unchaperoned road-trip in B-Mac’s broken-down hippy-mobile with an assortment of quacky fellow travelers for a smash-out Madi Gras celebration in Alabama! While some of the incongruity of the road trip itself set itself up as an avenue for comic relief, much of the “humor” involving the B-Mac Brigade felt more forced than funny.

    I’ll admit that the plot picked up pace as Hannah came closer to finding out the truth about her past. The very fact that victims of abortion are finally being given a face through Hannah’s character is full of controversial implications long needed to be brought to the fore, and the scene where the former abortion assistant reveals the lurid details about the abortion industry is deeply emotionally intense.

    But this is not a judgmental film. On the contrary, sympathy is shown as much to the biological mother and abortion nurse as to Hannah and her adopted parents. I comment the filmmakers for finding two actresses who actually looked like they have been mother and daughter. Cindy’s refusal to acknowledge her daughter is heart-breaking, as much as the emotional reunion between Hannah and her adopted parents is healing. The scene in which Hannah and Dr. Lawson visit her brother’s grave, and he tells her how he used to hold her as a baby and be afraid to let her go after tragically losing three of his other children is a tear-jerking moment.

    In a gesture of solidarity between Protestants and Catholics in the pro-life movement, the Baptist Hannah is shown going into a Catholic Cathedral and finding spiritual guidance from the priest there, who says, “Only in forgiveness can you be free....forgiveness that is well beyond your grasp, or mine…..but, if the Son shall set you free, you will be free indeed." Catholic viewers will probably pick up on two inaccuracies here; namely, that the priest refers to “services” instead of “masses” and that he neglects to genuflect when entering and leaving the pew! Nevertheless, the ecumenical message was encouraging and appreciated for the spirit in which it was inserted.

    The finale was satisfactory for all involved, and hope wins out over despair. Hannah is reconciled with her adopted parents and starts dating the dingy but devoted Jason. Cindy is touched to the core by her biological daughter’s note of forgiveness and finally finds the strength to reveal her troubled past to her husband. Nurse Mary is also given new courage which enables her to return to the medical field, this time as a midwife.

        October Baby may not be the best picture in the realm of cinematic art, but the good intent of those who worked on it as a true labor of love is possible is priceless. The kindness of the policeman and his injunction to “hate the sin, but love the sinner” sums up God’s own compassionate attitude towards us. It also sums up what should always be at the heart of the pro-life movement. 

Hannah Lawson (Rachel Hendrix) steps onto the stage