Plot Summary
John always likes to go with his father to pick out a new horse every year, and he knows his father is good at picking out the best horses. However, this year, his father acquires a crazed unruly mare and decides that she belongs to John so that he can train her. John is dejected at this prospect because he feels like he’ll never be able to fix his new broken horse. Nevertheless, this father persists in forcing him to train it, which leads to surprising results.
Production Quality (3 points)
John Lyde and his Covenant Communications and Mainstay Productions teams are consistently committed to quality productions even though their films are not traditional length. This commitment to good quality is evident in crisp video quality, professional camera work, and good audio quality. The soundtrack is interesting and engaging, and the sets, locations, and props are well-constructed and well-utilized for the historical time period. In the end, though the editing is a bit average, this production doesn’t have any major problems, which warrants a perfect score.
Plot and Storyline Quality (.5 point)
Lyde and his team always prize shorter stories over long and drawn out films that have no interest, and basing this short film off of a Christian novella was definitely a good idea to acquire source material. Because of this source material, the plot is slightly more creative and different than most Christmas films, but it seems to contain a lot of odd messaging that appears to glorify patriarchal attitudes. The father character is likely realistic in his portrayal, but the story seems to pass along messaging that he is a wise and all-knowing character. Other characters need better development through more substantial dialogue, which one would think would come from basing a short film off of a novella. Since it’s so short, we needed to see very streamlined character development, but the plot instead lags behind and chooses to focus on pushing lessons on the audience that really don’t make much sense and on forced Christian messages that don’t seem to apply to the characters’ situations. Some portions don’t appear to be very rooted in reality, and the abrupt and rushed ending causes the story to be over before much happens. In short, while this could have been an honest and raw character biopic, it was reduced to a quasi-sermonizing piece that pushes messages that are hard to comprehend.
Acting Quality (2 points)
As a whole, there aren’t many acting problems in this film, which is a consistent component in John Lyde’s creations. The casting and coaching appear to be professional, and for the most part, emotions and line delivery are natural. However, this section isn’t perfect before of some slightly
over-dramatized parts and some weak child acting, but in the end, this rounds out an another above average film for the Mainstay\Covenant team.
Conclusion
It’s absolutely a great idea to use Christian novels and novellas as source material for Christian films, especially since there are so many options to choose from. This high number of selection opportunities makes it odd when obscure novellas like this one was chosen, especially when it’s not clear what My Broken Horse Christmas actually wants us to learn. It’s a visually appealing yet substantially vague experience that will likely and unfortunately be easily forgotten. John Lyde has always been right on the cusp of greatness, so it’s time for him to take the next step into dynamic creations.
Final Rating: 5.5 out of 10 points
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