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The Overnighters

10/6/2015

45 Comments

 

A-
3.78

Broken, desperate men chase their dreams and run from their demons in the North Dakota oil fields. A local Pastor risks everything to help them.

Directed by Jesse Moss
​
Initial Review by Jon Kissel

  • The Overnighters is overflowing with depth and nuance - Jon
  • Reinke's story is a reminder that when you bear a cross, you usually get crucified - Lane
  • This movie captured, in the best way possible, the dichotomy of clergy life - Blair
Picture
​Deadwood is easily my favorite TV show.  I think it captured something deeply true about the American ethos and broader humanity, and since that show wrapped, I've been especially open to modern, revisionist Westerns.  Not the cowboys and Indians type, but the morose, isolating, ultimately cynical type.  Give me an Assassination of Jesse James or a Meek's Cutoff over anything starring John Wayne in chaps.  Informed by Deadwood and the aforementioned movies, among others, the frontier becomes a place of unfulfilled promise, a dam with a shaky foundation that is fundamentally unable to hold back the forces that drove people to the frontier in the first place.  The Overnighters lands firmly in that tradition, a real life boomtown with all the upheaval that comes with it.  Pastor Reinke would find himself right at home in Deadwood with Al Swearengen and Joanie Stubbs.

Boomtowns are central to Deadwood, and while I would never want to be in one, they are deeply fascinating to me.  The promise of easy wealth, of being generously rewarded for your labor, draws in society's outcasts, putting the hopeful and optimistic in close contact with the faltering and broken trying to remake their lives.  Where 19th century boomtowns used to be empty prior to discovery of minerals or oil, now these places have their own customs and history prior to quadrupling rents and the camper invasion.  It's a sociology experiment writ large, and one that will likely leave desolation in its wake.

Williston may survive the fracking revolution, thanks to the oil crash slowing growth to a manageable level, but the story of its flawed pastor is humanity in all its contradictions and cross purposes.  If the equally-excellent doc Man on Wire can be made into a feature movie, I fully expect The Overnighters, starring Matt Damon (or Michael Shannon if Damon's too expensive), to be released in 2019.  Director Jesse Moss hit the jackpot with this guy.  A capital-C Christian doing his best to live like Jesus would, while the people that pay his salary and support his family work against his mission.  A man who asks himself, "Who is my neighbor and how can I serve him," and is wracked by his neighbors' having counter intentions.  Then, Moss throws in the twist of his 'same-sex attraction' and the likelihood that he was using the opportunity to house these men as titillation and an outright source of sex.  Public strength and private weakness, loving support from a family built on a lie, the mission versus the reality of charity, plus all the larger economic and sociological factors; The Overnighters is overflowing with depth and nuance.

The distance between a minister's calling to live as Christ-like as possible and the duty to shepherd parishioners who are less devoted is the most apparent theme, and I very much look forward to what our pastor members have to say.  The vast chasm separating Reinke and his flock is uncrossable, and it appears that no amount of scripture can change their minds.  They state how un-Christian their feelings towards the migrants are, but have those feelings anyway.  Why are these people even Christian in the first place?  Why is ministering to the needy less important than the cleanliness of the church?  Reinke is repeatedly asked by the migrants to reconcile the mission of the church with Williston's overall sentiment towards them, and he has very little to say.  The tribalism on display is shocking.  An atheist organization got a lot of traction with a billboard that stated, "You know it's not true."  It was aimed at the kind of cafeteria, cultural Catholics that just go through the motions without any conviction, much like the citizens of Williston on display.  Just leave the church already if you have no interest in what it preaches.  Isn't your apathy just making god angry?

In contrast to his congregation, Reinke comes off like a saint, and the eventual feature adaptation may stick with that straighforward depiction.  His reality is far more flawed and therefore more true and resonant.  Reinke himself questions why he's doing what he's doing.  Is it just to raise his self-esteem, possibly in the dumps because he's in a sham marriage?  Is it penance for his presumed sins?  He is a ball of cognitive dissonance, someone who is doing good in public and betraying his family in private.  He convinces migrants that he has their best interests at heart, and then casts them out when he can no longer support them.  Ultimately, does the handful of migrants he treated poorly wash out the hundreds who would view him as a savior?  Reinke's internal struggle and his various blind spots come out so clearly onscreen.  That interrogation of his actions, more than anything else, is what made him so appealing to me as a person.

In second fiddle, the migrants make less of an impression, but a significant one all the same.  Moss runs the gamut as far as types are concerned.  The two sex offenders are most compelling, as they speak to a deeper punishment inflicted on them beyond their time served.  For those interested in the public's deep and irrational hysteria around sex criminals, I would recommend a million times over the documentary Capturing the Friedman's.  The frontier calls specifically to men like these with checkered pasts, and there still isn't a place for them.  I don't exactly know what to do about that, but it makes them both deeply sympathetic.  The emotional roller-coaster the younger migrant goes on is fit for its own movie, as he follows a standard arc of discovery followed by achievement followed by status quo ante.  The older migrant with the disintegrating marriage hit hard, as his endeavor was doomed from the start.  He could've been unemployed with his family, or have the dignity of work in solitude, and ultimately gets neither.  The motor-mouthed man who plainly had meth experience gave the viewer an example of someone that doesn't get to sleep in the church, a decision that clearly wracked Reinke but was the right one to make.  The ending montage of migrants opened the floodgates.  Immigrants searching for security in America affects me deeply, as it reminds me of the promise of the West instead of its myriad failures and hypocrisies.

The townspeople and parishioners occupy the least amount of time.  I might consider this a problem of representation, but I do not.  Whatever his motivations, Reinke is so clearly in the right, and their petty concerns about cleanliness and the smoothness of weekly services and the vague specter of crime did not strike me as valid.  Wouldn't crime surely escalate if dozens of previously-safe migrants suddenly found themselves without a place to sleep?  Moss includes that seemingly out-of-place scene of the local teen rednecks catching birds with fishing hooks.  I can imagine criticism from that vantage, that he makes them look like rubes, but they were catching birds with fishing hooks.  The citizenry are surely experiencing skyrocketing inflation and property taxes, and their environment is being irrevocably altered for the worse, so they're deserving of sympathy, too, but not at the expense of the migrants.

I loved the Overnighters as a character study and as a piece of journalism capturing this one layered moment in America.  A modern day gold rush happening in the heartland, with a saintly but conflicted pastor fighting his community.  Moss emerges into the top tier of working documentarians with an incredible amount of access and a timeless, universal story.  I'm an atheist who will never come back to Christianity, but if there were more Reinke's, even with all his faults, it wouldn't be such a hateful proposition.  A
45 Comments
Admin
10/6/2015 01:30:01 am

Reserved for replies to initial review

Reply
Bryan
10/6/2015 11:58:58 pm

I spent many scenes thinking how much better this show would be as a feature film. Not sure if that should factor into my grade.

Reply
Bryan
10/7/2015 12:00:41 am

I feel like your love of the west and disdain for hypocritical Christians clouded this review.

It's an incredible review, but a bit overblown IMO.

Reply
Bobby
10/7/2015 12:39:51 am

I don't have quite the love for the West.. but do share some of the disdain for hypocritical Christians. With that, however, I think is why Reinke is so undeniably interesting and... likable here. Yes, he's hiding something, but he is clearly trying to find a way to communicate it... and he makes no claims to be, and doesn't try to act, superior than any of the people he allows into his church and home. This really shows the contrast with the opposing people at the paper, church, town, etc.

Some interesting tidbits that I drew a bit from:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/kateaurthur/10-things-to-know-about-the-overnighters#.miNDnBrw2

Jon
10/7/2015 01:38:45 am

Is the criticism that this movie was about things/themes I'm interested in?

Bryan
10/7/2015 08:52:41 am

The criticism, if you want to call it that, is that your review makes this movie read like a cinematic masterpiece.

Jon
10/9/2015 01:49:59 am

Clarification. The disdained hypocritical Christians you're referring to do not include Reinke, who is less hypocritical and and more weak, like most people. The hypocrites are the council members and the parishioners who know that Jesus welcomed all people with open arms and choose to shun them anyways. Reinke strikes me as a true Christian, weak but trying to do better, while the rest just like to go to a place on Sundays to give structure to their week.

Shane
10/9/2015 01:01:55 pm

I agree with Kissel here that Reinke is one of the incredibly vocal Christian hypocrites. He's not turning people away nor is he preaching the "Jesus wants you to be rich" nonsense.

I don't, however, see him as weak. He had to stick up for his convictions, which was the harder path. He is flawed though. He messed up bad. But pastors shouldn't be expected to be perfect. They're just human beings. Churches really go down a rotten path when thy start to see their leaders as near infallible. Look at all doomsday churches and Osteen stuff. They're religiously followed to the point where I'm not sure if they're being worshiped or if Jesus is.

Bobby
10/7/2015 12:45:14 am

Jon, do you know of anywhere to watch Capturing the Friedman's? Your comments lead me to look it up, and I'd be interested in watching. I think your note about the "public's deep and irrational hysteria around sex criminals" is interesting. Cases like Keith Graves seems to give credit to general public reaction... but on the other hand, nearly half of our group, mostly together, lived right next door to one. Which i suppose also speaks about the type of crime that was actually committed, right?

Reply
Jon
10/7/2015 01:31:20 am

Capturing the Friedmans also takes place in the 80's, when the added note of Satan worship was added for a little something extra. It's in HBOGo's rotation every now and then.

Bobby
10/7/2015 02:12:02 am

It's apparently still an ongoing debacle... which has me even more intrigued.

Shane
10/7/2015 04:53:08 pm

The fact that Keith Graves is now on trial for human trafficking says to me he was never telling the full story. Like all of the former addicts that we saw manipulation Reinke, Graves is a master manipulator. We saw how he turned the tables and made Reinke the bad guy, taking no blame for himself. Somehow, it was the guy who was helping him (when no one else would) that was the cause of his problems. Nonsense. The guy is probably garbage.

Bryan
10/6/2015 11:57:30 pm

Mobile review, so I'll be short. The premise of The Overnighters had me pumped. I love religious debates and a good oil story. However, as a documentary I feel like this was a bit of a let down. Maybe it's because the guys didn't work or they couldn't be filmed at work, but so much of the story seemed to be missing the roughness of a roustabouts working day. Even more severe, large chunks of the pastor's story were missing or moved around to create a better story line. I felt like The Overnighters was a 500 piece puzzle of beauty with a dozen pieces missing. One piece is not a big deal, but multiple pieces missing ruins a puzzle.

Jon laid out an incredible summary of the story, but I wasn't as interested or educated as I would have anticipated. So much potential, uneventful follow through.

Reply
Bryan
10/6/2015 11:58:01 pm

B-

Comments +1

Reply
Bobby
10/7/2015 12:28:10 am

It's interesting that you are disappointed in the film's lack of oil working.... as mentioned in my review below, that's actually what the film was initially going to be about, I guess... but Moss, found Reinke and what was going on with the migrants and the neighbors much more interesting.

When you say there are missing pieces, that makes me think there are questions you feel weren't answered... if so, what might they be?

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Jon
10/7/2015 01:38:01 am

If I know Bryan, I'm would guess he wanted more of the economic/environmental impact. I'm interested in that, too, but Reinke became the better story. It's the gap between the movie that is and the movie the viewer wants it to be. I talked about that in my Imitation Game review, where it affected my grade. Here, the movie that is strong enough to allay any disappointment about the finer points of the fracking boom.

Jon
10/7/2015 01:53:33 am

Ugh, 'I'm would guess.' Don't drink and comment.

Bryan
10/7/2015 07:22:30 am

This movie had no place for environmental impact.

It's hard to be incredibly specific post mortem, but I'd watch Reinke in turmoil over something related to the migrants then in the next scene, 8 decisions had been made and 12 actions taken and Reinke was talking about the outcome. The movie would go from A to D very quickly and sometimes out of order leaving out B and C.

Bryan
10/7/2015 07:23:29 am

As my neighbor's girlfriend from Gum Street might say, "You don't even f-Ing know me."

Bobby
10/7/2015 12:25:17 am

I think one of the best things a documentary can have is somebody at the center of it who isn't at all performing for the camera. Jay Reinke comes across as about as real as we could ever hope for. Apparently, when Moss first set out to North Dakota, it was to start a documentary about the oil rush and the works... with the image of a oil spattered man in a hard hat standing against a rig as the focal point. Then he read about the church and met Reinke. Moss gets a ton of credit for recognizing a story here and for how it's presented to us.

For the most part, I could basically just echo Jon's review. I see the people in the film in a similar way and have lot of the same thoughts and questions that he brings up. While it doesn't surprise me anymore, seeing how supposedly dedicated Christians act in the face of opportunity to serve/live in, perhaps, the most fundamentally Christian ways possible will always pique my interest. While his neighbors are what I've often come to cynically expect, Reinke actually does surprise me.

Technically speaking, the film was fantastic. Moss captured a lot of amazing moments on camera and the editing/production put it all together have a perfectly cohesive and compelling way.

I'm not sure what else to say... I feel like i should have a ton more to talk about since this was probably the best documentary I've ever watched (which begs an open question to you guys, what is the best documentary you've ever seen, including this?). So yeah, having such an interesting and real person as the focus drove this film. But, as Jon said, the other people were also compelling and their stories were worth the screen time. I have some other stuff to talk about that's not really review related, so I'll throw that in a comment. As I mentioned, this is the best doc I've watched, and with that I'm comfortable giving it the A+

Reply
Bobby
10/7/2015 12:31:38 am

Now any time I watch a documentary, as I assume many people do, I start looking a bunch of things up online and seeing where the rabbit hole goes... and this one has some depth. Keith Graves, the convicted sex-offender that Reinke invited into his home, and pretty much was the beginning of the end for The Overnighters... is currently awaiting trial (this month) after being charged last year with 11 felonies, including human/sex trafficking in Williston, North Dakota. And I have to admit... I do wonder if things wouldn't have gone down that path if the community wasn't so against what Reinke was doing. That isn't to defend anything Graves was convicted or about to stand trial for... but Reinke truly believed that he was helping him by bringing him in so he could find work and lead a better life. Of course, we even saw in the documentary that Graves wasn't upfront (apparently about his original conviction.. as it wasn't an 18 yr old and his 16 yr old gf like Reinke was seemingly lead to believe) about his history and didn't like being called out about it.

As for Reinke, he seems to be doing just fine. Unfortunately he's pretty adamantly against planned parenthood and anything pro-choice. One of the most incredible scenes was of him confessing to his wife... apparently that wasn't the planned conversation and Moss (who knew that conversation was coming eventually) didn't expect to be there for it, let along capture it on camera. He wasn't allowed to film Reinke speaking to the congregation about it. Anyway, he and his wife are still married.

Also, Phil Jackson went to highschool in Williston... having won two state basketball titles, as well as having the current athletics facility named after him. Neat.

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Jon
10/7/2015 12:42:34 am

Uhhh.... holy shit about Graves. That is something to think about. I don't know that it affects my grade, but it certainly adds new colors to the movie. I'll be Googling Graves for any updates.

Bobby
10/7/2015 12:48:10 am

Yeah... I added that as an extra comment because I didn't wanted to to be included as part of my grade. I do, however, really wonder what Reinke would have to say about the situation... if it's something he thought he could have prevented (or was preventing)... of it it would make him think that maybe what he was doing actually wasn't the right thing to do. And if this was something that happened while Moss was still filming... where the film may have went from there.

Bobby
10/7/2015 02:11:18 am

Whoa, typing fail.

I added that as an extra comment because I didn't want it to be included as part of my grade.

Shane
10/7/2015 05:26:37 pm

People think they can help reform sexual predators. I think the data is pretty overwhelming that you really can't.

Jon
10/9/2015 01:55:02 am

A cursory Internet search implies that sex offenders have a lower recidivism rate than non-sex offending felons. Don't know why that is, but the more intense monitoring of them might have something to do with it.

Jon
10/9/2015 02:08:34 am

Reinke being actively opposed to planned parenthood is par for the course for a ND pastor, and it doesn't affect my opinion of him at all.

Shane
10/9/2015 01:07:06 pm

Sex crimes are the hardest to prosecute. I'd take all data surrounding them with a grain of salt.

Shane
10/9/2015 01:19:01 pm

Plus they're not crimes of need. There's no financial incentive. It's purely destructive.

Jon
10/7/2015 02:02:18 am

Best documentaries.

Fog of War and Hoop Dreams are my only doc A+'s. With Hoop Dreams, enough said. Fog of War is simply Robert MacNamara, talking to the camera, trying and ultimately failing to rationalize his controversial career. It's making me emotional just to think about it.

For A-grade docs, Project Nim chronicles the life of a chimp raised for the first years of its life as a human. Boxing Gym is as simple of planting a camera in an Austin boxing gym and watching people go about their business. No End in Sight is the definitive account of the Iraq War up to 2006. I mentioned Man on Wire and Capturing the Friedmans in my review.

Docs tend to clog up my Netflix queue. There's a crazy amount on streaming.

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Bobby
10/7/2015 02:10:23 am

Man on Wire has been in my queueue for what seems like forever. I really need to watch it. Instead, I've just started to watch Rich Hill... only for the reason that it beat out The Overnighters for U.S. Grand Jury Prize at Sundance... and I wanna know why!

I admit that I usually go in to documentaries with a bit of hesitation. I almost always feel like I'm just going to have the filmmakers ideas tossed at me and/or there will be no story worth my attention. I'm often wrong enough, and I'm glad that we've had some worthwhile docs brought to the table here.

Lane
10/7/2015 04:01:12 pm

It's a shame that his persona overshadows his work, but I think Michael Moore is a dang talented filmmaker. "Bowling for Columbine" and "Fahrenheit 911" are very strong both in storytelling and technical filmmaking.

Shane
10/7/2015 05:29:40 pm

Moore ends up being too much propaganda for me. I put him where I put Blackfish. There well done and hit their purpose but I think theyre intellectually dishonest and manipulative.

Jon
10/9/2015 01:57:42 am

I've noticed that the best documentaries keep the maker behind the camera at all times. Moore always makes his movies about himself. Look how daring he is wrapping crime scene tape around that investment firm! There's no way that congressman is going to sign up their children for the army! Moore's so brave for asking them about it.

Shane
10/9/2015 01:19:56 pm

Moore is definitely one of those "bold stance" people that I love so much.

Lane
10/7/2015 03:48:46 pm

“Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘All who want to come after me must say no to themselves, take up their cross, and follow me. All who want to save their lives will lose them. But all who lose their lives because of me will find them.’” – Matthew 16:24-25

Artistic depictions of the pastoral life tend to be two-dimensional, and usually exist to make a larger point about the excesses of religious intolerance. In the 19th and 20th century, this most often took the form of sarcasm, and the best books and films used pastors for satire (think "Elmer Gantry" or Flannery O’Connor). However, it goes back farther than that. You can trace that lineage from Chaucer all the way to Ned Flanders.

Recently, there have been some more nuanced and three-dimensional pastoral representations. Marilynne Robinson’s “Gilead” trilogy comes to mind, and Robert Duvall’s “The Apostle” did an excellent job of exposing both the light and the darkness that exist in all of us – even those of us tied to the church for professional and personal reasons.

Pastor Reinke of the “The Overnighters” is one of these nuanced characters of light and dark. From the opening scene we get a sense that there is something going on beneath the surface; that things may not be all that they appear. For most of the movie we see a descent. The pastor is continually stressed and strained to the point of breaking. He ends up in several public fights. He pulls his car over to maniacally wave at an Amtrack. Maybe it was the way he looked and dressed, or just the fact that you were watching a man come undone, but sometimes I thought I was seeing a Lutheran versions of Walter White.

There was a moment in the movie, as Reinke counsels one of the sex offender men, that he tells him – “we’re not that different from each other.” And I thought to myself that this is absolutely true for all of us. I’ve had the chance to work with a lot of people very similar to the overnighters, and one of the things that has always hit me is that my life isn’t that far away from their lives. One extended illness; one lost job; one streak of bad luck and I could be the one looking for a floor to sleep on in a church hallway. We’re not that different. None of us. Of course, we realize that Reinke meant that line differently than we took it at the time. He meant that we all have secrets, and he has his share.

Reinke’s journey into the dark night of the soul happens not because of bad luck, but simply because he cares too much. Reinke is the Christ-figure. It’s been mentioned by Jon and Bryan that the movie would have benefited from a feature length treatment, and I absolutely agree. What we get for most of the film is still a two-dimensional picture of this man. Instead of satire, however, we see a man that can’t help but love his fellow human beings and we’re rooting for him. He is the devoted pastor, a fearless crusader for justice, and a beleaguered father and husband. He’s fighting unjust city council people on the one hand and belligerent Lutheran church members on the other. It isn’t until the film’s final 10 minutes that we realize the real enemy for Reinke hasn’t been external as much as it has been an internal struggle.

And yet, maybe that two-dimensional world is more real than a three dimensional one that a more fictitious film could offer. Speaking as a pastor, I recognized myself in Reinke more than I wish. I often feel forced to live a two-dimensional life. I try and be careful what I post on Facebook or Twitter. I definitely act and talk differently with church members than I do with close friends. I tend not to share opinions very much. Sometimes I have to fight the tension of not standing up for things I feel strongly about because it would just make life more complicated and difficult. I struggle with whether I’m being pragmatic or duplicitous in my duties in ministry, because sometimes the area between the two is very gray.

Maybe a more seasoned documentarian could have told the story with more nuance and allowed us to journey with Reinke into and through his personal struggles. Maybe. Or maybe the story we got is the best we could ever get and retain a sense of reality. I really loved this film and will be recommending it to all my pastor friends, but with a warning that you will be depressed when it’s over. Reinke’s story is a reminder that when you bear a cross, you usually get crucified.

Liked:
- realistic portrait of pastoral life

Disliked:
- more nuanced internal struggle
- would have liked to have seen more attention paid to the ways that each charater’s story interwove with each other
- the state of North Dakota

Grade: A-

Reply
Shane
10/7/2015 04:35:30 pm

I can't imagine the feeling the first guy got when he was in Dakota Country and stumbled across gold. Was he looking for it? Did he know what he found when he found it? Did he know just how much gold was going to be found? Was it more putting himself in a place to succeed or is it just pure luck?

That’s the same way I feel about Jesse Moss following Rev Reinke. Moss was looking for something and ended up with way more than he knew. He was sitting on a goldmine in Reinke.

Reading Jon’s review, I am glad to know that I’m not the only one who thought of Deadwood. Like Deadwood, the theme here is community. We don’t get to see how this community started, but we do get to see what happens when they’re threatened by change. While Deadwood gave us multiple characters to watch deal with change and grow, we only get one person here who we see with any sort of depth.
That person is Reinke. He starts as exceedingly likable. He’s a minister who is working hard for strangers, sacrificing himself fo the greater good. It’s refreshing to see a Christian act in a manner that we recognize from Jesus’s behavior, right down to arguing with his own congregants. But we start to see a chink in his armor as he badly misfires on his handling of a sex offender. Moss does some nice editing here to keep what the man did as a mystery before revealing we’re talking about a guy who was 18 and had a 16 year-old girlfriend. Is the guy a dangerous guy? I have no idea. He certainly doesn’t seem like it. But Reinke’s decision to hide him is what gives us the apex of the story. It gives us our plot and we watch our protagonist truly struggle and fail. Reinke, simply, made the wrong choice. When you have children involved, any sort of sexual issue must be disclosed and Reinke, though his heart is in the right place, completely blows it.

And then the issue sinks the entire operation, as cover-ups often end up doing. Reinke’s decision to skirt about the issue reveals actual predators who have been in the camp. By failing, Reinke possibly keeps people safe. Unfortunately, it also leads to the loss of a place to stay for the overnighters.

Our side characters are all interesting as well. The meth addict who is obviously in a manic and possibly schizophrenic state is compelling. The former drifter turned camp leader turned outed sex offender was a ticking time bomb (I knew something was going to happen there). Reinke’s biggest supporter and the one who has sacrificed the most in his wife, who ends up only being punished for her sacrifice. Reinke’s compassionate children. The churc-folks who make any excuse possible to say they just don’t want change when in reality they just want to own the community. It’s like when the Bella Union came to Deadwood: They were hated immediately, but by the next year they were on the camp side, which is how community grows.

We go through all these motions and we see what we think is the collapse of Reinke. But we’re hit with one more bombshell: Reinke has had affairs with men. Moss couldn’t have possibly known this twist and it closes out what would be a pretty normal story with one more reminder that we’re all flawed. We can’t pin the negatives of this one on some narcissistic asshole from New York or an overzealous and seemingly self-righteous reporter.

In the end, we have a compelling story that is edited beautifully together to give slowly reveal what’s behind the curtain. Moss makes his best call by not including himself, even though I’ve read elsewhere that he was living in this lifestyle for a year. He does try to sell us something other than a story. He lets the viewer make the moral judgments rather than telling the viewer what their opinion should be. Like with any excellent documentary, I wanted to learn more.

A

Reply
Shane
10/7/2015 04:50:21 pm

I meant to mention that these towns are always fools gold. They attract unsettled and unsuccessful people looking to strike it big. But these people are almost always going to fail. There's a reason they're looking in the first place. They're uneducated, strung out, or criminals. Other than the young man with the new baby, none of the men seemed remotely reliable. And towards the end, we see the young father contemplating shirking his responsibility to be with his child in order to be out in the middle of nowhere, but feeling successful. This sort of short-sided thinking is exactly why these guys were sleeping in a church.

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Bobby
10/7/2015 07:24:21 pm

I meant to touch upon the community theme, but got completely lost in my rabbit hole of learning more about the town, Graves, Reinke, etc.... so I'm glad you put a good bit of focus on that. I probably should have waited until I finished clicking every other link I saw about the people... then wrote a more focused and thorough review.

Reply
B
10/11/2015 10:36:22 pm

Lane was actually in town this past weekend, which was a treat, and he encouraged me to make my own formula for a post. I'm going to try to do that from now on. So likely they'll be bullet point or something. This post will be a bit more lengthy.

I cannot write and critique like any of you and that's ok. (and gosh darn it, people like me)

So here are my two cents. This movie captured, in the best way possible, the dichotomy of clergy life. The call to serve and love the least of these with the reality that each of us is broken. We live in a broken world, just look around...this past week a parent in our congregation called me asking for help; his high schooler (along with many others) has been the victim of unwanted/unknown personal photographs being posted to an instagram account dedicated solely to posting pictures of unsuspecting young women. Am I on an episode of CSI? This shit is real and it's ugly. The perp was a fellow classmate, a 16 or 17 year old. Is he a soon to be sex offender? I don't know.

Fracking is also brokenness - the film hinted at this relationally, but did not discuss the environmental stuff. It was not necessary or even beneficial to expound on it in the documentary, but it is interesting to consider in light of the film's overall theme.

I walked away wanting to know more. How the hell did he stay at that church so long if the congregation was opposed to what he was doing? In the Lutheran church, my understanding is that they have a "call system", you basically put out your resume and churches put out their needs and you interview, etc. They could have fired him at any point (if my understanding is correct). Did some see this was good work? How much of the congregation was involved? How many members did that church have? How many of the Overnighters ended up as active members of that congregation? How many people (church members, neighbors, overnighters) lives were changed for the better?

I would recommend this movie to all clergy people, but I would not give the warning that Lane does. It wasn't depressing to me. It was real life. Somehow that isn't depressing, it's maybe comforting. All people have the potential for good and bad. How much good can you do? Does the bad negate the good? Life is complicated.

I believe in redemption, I believe in grace, and I believe that God continues to pursue us despite our flaws. With that said, I believe when we mess up there are consequences. Should this pastor have lost his credentials because of his marital infidelities? If they had been with a woman would society/church view that differently?

To Jon, you wrote, "For those interested in the public's deep and irrational hysteria around sex criminals, I would recommend a million times over the documentary Capturing the Friedman's." I have not watched this, but I will and I just watched a trailer, which was intriguing. As a youth minister, one could imagine I have very strong feelings about protecting minors (and others including adult survivors) at all costs. Let's talk, I'll watch the documentary.

Grade, A

Reply
Bryan
10/11/2015 11:39:49 pm

Damn. If that's your $0.02, I'm bringing Cambodian Riel to most of my reviews.

I don't like play-by-plays of the movie anyway. Long-winded, tangential rants or questions are the way to go!

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B
10/12/2015 10:14:00 am

I have no idea what your comment means.

Shane
10/12/2015 11:01:16 am

It means it was pretty thorough for 2¢

Jon
10/12/2015 12:09:27 am

For those that end up watching Capturing the Friedmans, please don't misconstrue my statement about that movie as giving child molesters the benefit of the doubt, which is obviously not something I would cosign. It is partly about a potential overreaction to sex crimes, driven by the media, that could lead to teenagers like the ones Blair mentions being branded as sex offenders for the rest of their lives (though goddamn, what that kid did is gross and very sad). Check out the below link for one example thereof.

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/09/nc-teen-charged-as-an-adult-for-sexting-pictures-of-himself/

Reply
Lane
10/12/2015 02:07:52 pm

Great review! See, format helps!

Maybe I will revise my thoughts on it being a depressing movie. You're right - depressing isn't the right word. It was one of those movies that just broke me down a little bit. Which is something I value in a movie.

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