Heavens to Betsy

I was pleasantly surprised by the lead's performance. She was really fantastic, and I hope that she will continue to appear in faith based films. The story had a very cute and poignant ending, but overall, it was slow and at times, it was hard for this viewer to stay focused. I watched this on pureflix so I did not see the alternative endings.

This movie started off pretty slow. And some of the acting appears more amateur than professional. And some parts are so cheesy that the writer should have been fired. I was seriously thinking of giving up on it - but I'm really glad that I didn't.

It got better, little by little. Until eventually by the end it was a pretty decent movie. (Hence my 8 out of 10 rating.) The acting improved sufficiently as the movie progressed. But most pleasing of all was the storyline. It started off disjointed but the ending was really good in bringing everything together.

This movie won't win an Oscar but it's worth watching, in my opinion.

Let me start out by saying I'm not a big fan of Christian movies -- not because I have anything against their usual messages, but I usually find them to be rather simplistic with limited filmmaking quality. But then, I'm not a big fan of movies in general these days anyway.

"Heavens to Betsy" isn't great cinema, but it does have a rather quirky sense of humor that's atypical of "Christian movies." Plot-wise it's sort of a cross between alternate-reality stories like "It's a Wonderful Life" (i.e., what if things had gone *this* way instead?) and "Bruce Almighty" (i.e., God wouldn't really do this to someone, but you might not blame him if he did).

This has a plot that keeps you watching to see what happens next, as twists are revealed to both the viewer and the main character. As Betsy reacts to her "alternate reality," though, one might wonder why it never occurs to the other characters to suspect she has amnesia, and never occurs to her to fall back on this as her own explanation.

My only other comment is that I ended up wishing the ending hadn't been as rushed as it is. (This is not the alternate ending, which I haven't seen.) I was left wanting to see, and not just hear about, how things were resolved.

I sat down hoping to enjoy this film, and I simply did not. I always hope to see indie films that rise above the rest, and this one didn't. The story is basically a mix stolen from several other films. It seems to take the most from Bruce Almighty, a Jim Carey vehicle from the early 2000's.

The acting is pretty subpar from most of the cast, there are a few good moments here and there. The writing is really very bad. It's not funny, it stalls out and dies on delivery. I think a lot of the problems with this film fall onto the director, there was a lot that could have been done to make this work, and it just felt lazily shoved together.

I was able to see the film on pureflix, and they usually have some pretty good stuff, but this one I don't think the runners of pureflix even saw before they put it online. My kids grew bored with this after just the first few minutes, they ran off to play, and I stayed thinking it would pick up, it didn't.

I don't want to be mean, because I could see that some of the cast/crew was really trying, but it was also bad. Seeing the other reviews on here, they must know the director or producer, because they aren't being truthful.

This movie would be fine for those of you who live in a fairy tale World.

But I found it to be biased. Very Pro God, and just too far-fetched for me. But alas, I'm a realist.

I wanted to tune out, but I kept thinking it was going to get better, so I stayed with it. I just wasted a few hours of my life!

And the restaurant scene where she was trying to talk to her sister? Ridiculously LOUD background noise - repeated soundtrack of silverware and plate clacking & clinking noises. Any director in their right mind knows that should fade out for the conversations unless it is part of the subject of the conversation. But even though it was irrelevant it downed on through the whole damn scene! I know that's kind of a silly thing to focus on, but I really did bother me.