In all regular fashion, Hallmark provides an inspirational, moving film with Amish Grace, a docudrama following the 2006 tragedy in which a man shot and killed five Amish children and injured five others. In similar regular fashion, the film delivers poor, melodramatic acting, annoying TV blackouts place for commercial breaks, and bits of unrealistic and inaccurate information. Luckily, none of these is enough to hinder the film’s message of grace and forgiveness.
The viewer learns to forgive and love others along with the film’s main character, Ida (Kimberly Williams-Paisley), whose daughter is one of the children killed. Ida has difficulty accepting the Amish community’s way of forgiveness, especially when the community won’t forgive her sister for leaving to join the “modern English” world.
Meanwhile, the wife of the shooter deals with her own conscience and has trouble understanding the welcoming Amish community. As her life crosses paths with Ida, their journeys take new turns and they learn the true meaning of grace.
Grace leaves unfilled holes at the end of the film, however. Ida never reconciles with her husband and the Amish community over the issue of her sister’s “shunning.” Viewers are left wondering if Ida will ever see her sister again and how the film’s concept of grace applies to her sister’s “sin.”
Anyone familiar with the Amish culture will likely be annoyed by the small inaccuracies that appear throughout the film. Such factual errors and changes to the story are to be expected with a film adaptation of real events, however, especially when the film is for a TV channel with a strict budget.
Cheap TV productions come with cheap acting, as well. While the actors in Amish Grace deliver in more intense, emotional scenes, their day-to-day lines come across as canned, unrealistic, and melodramatic.
The faults of Amish Grace, however, are typical of made-for-TV dramas, and such faults have been much worse in other films than they are in Amish Grace. Viewers who watch Amish Grace without high expectations are still sure to be pleased by its inspirational message and extend some grace of their own to the film.
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