Premarital Parent Guide

Brides often experience pre-wedding jitters, but Sophie’s (Kelley Jakle) aren’t related to her fiancé. She’s excited to marry Alan (Mark Hapka) and continue their lives in New York. Her worries are focused on the week before the wedding, which will be spent with her family in their coastal community.

Sophie has grounds for concern. Her father, Stewart Whitaker (Jim O’Heir) is the pastor of the local evangelical church and is zealous in his responsibilities. When he learns that Alan is not religious, Stewart switches into high gear. He’s determined that his future son-in-law be saved before the wedding – and he’s willing to do whatever it takes to convert him. Thus begins five days of zany hi-jinks as Stewart tries to alternately charm and scare Alan into the fold, which not only strains Alan and Sophie’s relationship, but also cracks open the façade of the Whitaker family. 

Premarital is one of the strangest Christian-themed films I’ve ever seen. For starters, it’s loaded with surprising plot points, ranging from adultery through to academic dishonesty, open marriage, homosexuality, and teen pregnancy (with a coded discussion of abortion). Even more unexpectedly, this unrated film contains enough negative content to land it with a Restricted rating. There are frequent scenes of main characters smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol, and becoming intoxicated. Eight sexual expletives are startling in a film geared at a Christian audience, but it’s the sexual content that is most unexpected. There are several conversations involving sexual innuendo, including a sight gag about masturbation. Implied sex scenes see teens in a bouncing car and an adulterous liaison in which a woman licks a man’s cross pendant as they fall into bed together. (She later speaks enthusiastically about his “spiritual horsepower”.) This is not the PG comedy that most viewers will anticipate from the trailer.

Premarital definitely isn’t the film the trailer led me to expect. I assumed this would be a goofy, good-hearted comedy with Christian cultural references and gags. It isn’t. This is a film that exposes the damage of hypocrisy, the cost of conditional love, and the dangers of religious manipulation. I honestly don’t know who will want to watch this: Christians may well be outraged at this cringe-inducing, negative depiction of their faith. Non-Christians could easily see the movie as an exposé of a toxic cult. As a Bible-reading, churchgoing (non-evangelical) Christian myself, I am appalled at a film that paints Christians as dimwitted hucksters.

Most damaging of all is the character of Pastor Stewart. He’s portrayed as an aw-shucks kind of guy; clueless but good-hearted. To the contrary, Stewart is arrogant, self-centered, emotionally manipulative, and spiritually abusive to his family. (People with a history of religious abuse or trauma should avoid this film.) He is intolerant and dismissive of the opinions, emotions, or beliefs of others and even speaks dismissively of his daughter’s choice of fiancé: “Her female hormones have taken over and she can’t think straight”. It is shocking that a man who supposedly professes to teach a gospel of unconditional love should be so focused on the forms of religion and so completely ignorant of its very substance. Although the script gives Stewart a redemptive arc, it comes late; after he’s done a lot of damage.

Undoubtedly, some viewers will tell me that I am too uptight and am reading too much into a light-hearted movie that pokes fun at evangelical Christian cultural tropes. Maybe. Perhaps if I took Christianity less seriously, I might be able to shrug off this film’s flaws. But then I would turn my back on both my faith and my job: and I’m not prepared to do either. 

About author

Kirsten Hawkes

Kirsten Hawkes has a BA in Political Science and English and has worked in international development and medical education and marketing. Kirsten enjoys reading, watching movies, and debating politics with her husband and sometimes unwilling children.