[yasr_overall_rating]
A family man makes a mistake that changes his life forever. With help he starts the journey to forgiveness, hopefully it will bring him back to his family.
A prodigal son sort of story, “Lyfe’s Journey” begins with casual conversation as an opening scene that sets a tone that brings to mind the level of acting you’d expect from the ensemble cast of a small theater production, or even a class for aspiring actors who are working out the kinks and figuring out the ropes of stepping into the character of another being. However, the actors who portray the film’s main characters, the Lyfes, Angell Conwell, and Keith Robinson, of “The Young and the Restless” and “Dreamgirls” fame (respectively), don’t seem to be actors who would fit that bill.
Quickly after learning a bit more about the couple, their friendships, relationship dynamic, and future goals, the direction of the plot becomes obvious. As David Lyfe (Keith Robinson) finds in Amy, a woman he meets at a hotel bar while in LA, a confidant and opposite of his wife Tricia (Angell Conwell), it doesn’t take a lot to guess at what is to come.
An opportunity for an uplifting story sacrifices much of the story component for the uplifting part if the equation. It is strange to talk about how “preachy” or not a film like this one, with obvious religious references and themes, is; even if they seem to be few and far between. However, the writer of “Lyfe’s Journey” does seem to toe a line carefully; after jamming into the movie’s story how religion and religious people had the power to restore the life of Lyfe the entire time. This is done with the help of current “American Horror Story” actor Richard T. Jones in the role of a good Samaritan who, ironically, tells David Lyfe about how important patience is when it comes to the power of faith to change things for the better.
This information is passed along from Jones, as an involved neighborhood pastor, to Lyfe right before “Lyfe’s Journey” suddenly speeds to a halt; with resolution not seeming to come from anywhere in particular, but just seeming to come. Life itself can occasionally be like this, and we’ve all heard that life imitates art, (and vice versa) but this film doesn’t pull off that level of intersectional realism in a way that really works.
The plot is steady enough. The film is shot well, as many made-for-TV movies seem to be these days, but the writing and acting come across surface-level at best, and the story is a little all over the place – leading to an ending that makes the entirety of the viewing experience a little more disappointing than any separate issues a viewer may have had with the film.
This suddenness is not a “Prozac Nation” sort of…gradually and then suddenly type of sudden ending, but the sort of sudden ending that weakens the plot and fails to capitalize on several factors and character relationships that could have pushed the film into varying, interesting, and congruent directions type of way.
Available now on DVD
Why is this movie so hard to purchase. It is a positive movie apparently, I don’t understand.