Plot Summary
After settling into their new lives together, Clark and Ellen Davis had a daughter named Missie and all seemed well for them. However, things are about to change for them, as a drought threatens to destroy their very livelihood. Their financial struggles prompt Ellen to take on extra work in town as a seamstress. Clark’s parents also come to assist them however they can. However, the new work begins to take a toll on Ellen’s health, and soon Clark must decide what he is going to do as he is faced with an impending tragedy. Will he stand strong in his faith or turn away?
Production Quality (2 points)
In keeping with most Hallmark movies, the production quality of Love’s Resounding (Everlasting) Courage is above average. The camera work is solid, along with the video and sound qualities. The sets and locations are above average and the surroundings give off a truly authentic frontier feel. The biggest caveat here, besides the typical too-modern costuming, is the sloppy editing. Events sometimes happen too quickly and other times seemingly out of order. However, this is a very well produced film, which really make it a shame that the plot is way off base.
Plot and Storyline Quality (.5 point)
From the get go, it seems like Courage is going to be a really good movie about frontier struggles and the tragedy that shaped Clark Davis as a character for the remainder of the saga. For the most part, this happens. We need more plots like this that realistically demonstrate the tragic and hard things in life that everyone is faced with from time to time. The dialogue therein is pretty good, and the characters are obviously flawed. However, this plot receives a very low score because the obligatory new romantic subplot inserted into this film—the one between Ben and Sarah that was discussed in the inaugural Love Comes Softly film—completely undermines the intent of this entire franchise! In Courage, their love doesn’t comes softly and they don’t marry out of ‘sheer need’, but for love. There would be nothing wrong with this, except that, rather than just follow the original storyline that fans know, Hallmark elected to settle for a predictable romance that utterly strips the franchise of its purpose. Evidently, they thought that audiences wouldn’t notice or care. When will production teams begin to treat audiences better than this?
Acting Quality (1.5 points)
Much like Love Begins, the acting demonstrates typical Hallmark elements. As usual, the makeup and costuming do not exactly reflect historical authenticity. The line delivery is neither great nor terrible. Emotions can be felt by the audience. In short, this section is business as usual.
Conclusion
Resounding Courage is a problematic movie. On one hand, it has a very interesting premise with a lot of potential. But on the other hand, it completely destroys the original premise of the Love Comes Softly series by inserting a new convenient romance just for the fun of it. The longer this film franchise dragged on, the worse it became, to the point of turning the entire purpose on its ear. This is exactly what will happen when creative teams deviate so far from the original purpose of a novel series to the point that they are just reusing the same concepts over and over again rather than provide audiences with fresh ideas that can be found in the pages of the very books the movies are based off of. This is the end of Box Office Revolution’s Love reviews for now, so we will leave it with this note: make more Christian books into movies, but please, we beg of you, stay true to the books.
Final Rating: 4 out of 10 points
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