If you haven’t seen the news, there was a bit of a surprise in the weekend box office numbers. Black Panther continues to rule and the new Tomb Raider film is getting mediocre reviews, but a film based upon the hit Christian song, I Can Only Imagine, hit theaters as well and it picked up 3rd place at the box office. It was in only about 1600 theaters compared to the others which were in twice as many. Its budget was a measly $7 million, and in its opening weekend it raked in $17 million and has made some big waves and will be expanding to more theaters this weekend.

I have to say that based on the trailers that I was a few months back it wasn’t really on my radar either. However after getting the chance to see it tonight, I had to let folks know that it is the real deal and I hope that other Christian directors and writers and actors take some notes because there is much to learn here.

While I am a Christian, I’m often embarrassed by the poor quality of the films that bear the name of my faith. They usually suffer from wooden performances, awkwardly written and over-spiritualized scripts. This was different.

A note of bias, I do adore Mercy Me’s music however, like the tagline of the film says, even though I knew the song I was completely unaware of the story behind it. The film combines equal parts touching redemption story with musical biopic. Sadly, I thought that the musical portion was the weakest link.

Unless you grew up like I did, you would have no idea who some of the important musical figures were like Michael W. Smith and Amy Grant. This was not well explained and was unnecessary for the most part. Trace Adkins was humorously refreshing as the band’s manager, and newcomer J. Michael Finley does a good job juggling between funny, emotional, and exhilarated. Here’s hoping this doesn’t remain the only listing on his IMDb page.

The high note of the film was the abusive father played brilliantly by Dennis Quaid. I don’t think I’ve seen him this good since the early 2000’s with Far From Heaven and Frequency. The anger and bitterness of many years was all visible on his face and even through the powerful redemption story line the scars still remain. This is a deeply human story and it is emotionally affecting with the waves coming in rapid succession and hitting hard.

This isn’t a perfect movie by any means, there a a half a dozen characters that could have been better fleshed out, the romance felt tacked on and unnecessary (although I was happy to see Madeline Carroll. I’ve missed her since 2010’s Flipped).

You can feel good about taking the whole family to see this, it deals with some hard issues like abuse, divorce, and forgiveness, but it’s not overly preachy. It will act as wonderful counter programming to the LGBT drama Love, Simon. While I have no hate for my LGBT friends, it is very nice to see my lifestyle and beliefs portrayed in a good film finally.