When you're single and dating, sometimes you'll go out with absolutely amazing people whom you find exciting and interesting in many different ways, and who stay in your mind long after the date is over (“Wow! When can I see him/her again?”).

And...sometimes you'll go out with people whose personality or character clash with your own at every turn, and your memory of the event afterwards is more along the lines of: ‘I'm glad that's over!’.

And...sometimes you'll go out with someone who’s remarkably…unremarkable.  Someone who’s somewhat pleasant and inoffensive, such that you can stand being in their presence without pulling out your hair, but don’t have anything interesting, moving, or unique about them to make you remember them in any context at all after the date is over.  You don't despise them, certainly, but have a hard time finding anything to like either.

Movie watching is the same way…and “Baptists At Our Barbecue” is kind of like that third person—it’s pleasant enough that it’s hard to actively hate it, but it certainly doesn’t offer anything to make you want to go out with it again, or frankly even remember much about it a half-hour after the ‘date’ is over…

The setting of “Baptists...” involves a small town in a never-specified state (presumably not Utah) which consists of 262 Baptists and 262 Mormons.   The movie is told entirely from the Mormon side (as you might expect) despite the equal mix, with the Baptist side constantly viewed from a figurative (and oftentimes literal) distance. 

The main character is Tartan, a 29-year-old single Mormon who’s never been outside of Utah, and takes a job in the aforementioned small town, disrupting the fragile religious balance. (Although since there are clearly not 262 people attending the LDS sacrament meeting, we know that there are many inactives—probably in both churches. The effect of inactives on the 'balance' of the town is never discussed…)

Tartan seems like a nice guy, although kind of bland—you can easily imagine his not being married at age 29 is because girls found him falling solidly into dating category #3 above…kind of like a song you hear on the radio that you don’t hate enough to switch stations, but isn't good enough to make you go out and buy the CD either.  While there, Tartan meets 25 year old--and newly-unattached--Charity (who, by contrast, would probably have you running to the music store, breathlessly asking the clerk if the CD is still in stock...)

You might have trouble recognizing initially that Charity is played by Heather Beers of "Charly", with her ultra-straight hair and more laid-back personality.   Don’t worry, if you've seen "Charly" any time in the last five years, you’ll figure it out soon enough, because “Baptists...” gives you LOTS of close-ups of her. 

(And, hey, why not? (1) It's Heather Beers, and (2) it’s not like anyone else in the movie is particularly photogenic…)

“Baptists” works best, in fact, when Tartan and Charity are simply talking to each other. Tartan shows a little more personality and energy, and Charity carries herself with wry dialogue and bemused smiles so that their scenes together have at least a little flair. Had the movie been entirely about their relationship, it might have had a better chance of success.

Alas, the movie has other things on its agenda, which are only sporadically successful. “Baptists” aims to be a quirky comedy in a small town filled with quirky people. Unfortunately, ‘quirky’ is not an easy tone to pull off—without the right touch those 'quirky' characters just turn into shallow and annoying caricatures without any realism.  “Baptists”, unfortunately, falls into this same trap.  None of the ‘unique’ denizens of Longfellow are particularly well-rounded or believable.  And, the movies jumps from one to another so quickly, it’s hard to get to know, or provide a fulfilling character arc for any of them.

The other plot points and ‘messages’ of the movie turn out to be pretty muddled as well.  We’re taught that we should tolerate others different than ourselves, but how the townspeople actually learned that lesson (and so quickly!) is a little vague.  Likewise, a plot thread about a ‘bad’ character trying to redeem himself feels like a few vital scenes were missing with the ‘redeeming’ part, in fact, comes only as a voiceover at the end.  The plot thread of who stole half of the LDS trailer--set up to be the primary catalyst for story progression--is dropped suddenly without warning, and gets barely a mention at the end.  

The fact is, nothing other than the romance works in this movie, and although it's not a spectacular nor an offensive failure, there’s not really much to recommend “Baptists” as anything other than a cheap rental when there’s nothing better on the shelf to grab.

Final Grade: C

Analysis and Other Comments (possible spoilers):

(1)  The scene where a house is deliberately set on fire, almost killing one of the main characters was probably a little too serious for the tone of this movie.  I'm sure this could have been rewritten to something less dramatic (and more funny) that could have served the same plot purpose.

(2) The underlying message of the movie is getting along with people different than you. In this movie, it’s Baptists and Mormons, although it could have been Catholics and Protestants, Christians and Muslims, blacks and whites, East Coast and West Coast rappers, etc… At no time does any actual church doctrine come into play in the movie, so the two groups could have been Democrats and Republicans for all it really mattered.

I’m not sure the definitions of the two groups mattered internally either. Once you’ve defined Us and Them in your mind, you stop thinking about why you don’t get along with Them (specific doctrinal differences or what) and just remember that They are different from Us…and that’s Bad.

There are a number of ways where this lesson of tolerance and inclusion could have been achieved in the course of the movie, and the movie happened to choose one of the least effective methods.  Seriously, a strange ‘miraculous’ sound in the mountains?  If that was supposed to be a subtle comment about how uneducated people treat ‘miracles’ and how easily they can change prejudices, it was too subtle for me…

Other, better methods of achieving religious unity amid the conflicts in the movie could have included:

• A Romeo-and-Juliet-style inter-faith romance between a young Baptist and a young Mormon, forcing their families to come to terms with one another.  (problematic, because of the LDS policy of marrying within the faith. The movie seems to hint at one such romance at the end, though...)
• A natural disaster, where the two sides have to band together to help the community survive. (The fire could have served this purpose in a different context...)
• Some other form of combined service project where the two sides have to work together to accomplish a common goal.

I would think any of these methods would have provided a more fulfilling and meaningful reconciliation between the two sides in the end.

(3) I noted earlier "Baptists At Our Barbecue" is very LDS-centric, but fortunately not LDS-biased.  The Baptist/Mormon divide from the LDS side was not just 'They Hate Us', but also 'We Hate Them Back'.  The Mormons in Longfellow were depicted as being just as prejudiced against the other side as the Baptists were—perhaps more.   The movie could have made a major misstep by making the Saints too much like…um, ‘saints'.  By showing that the Mormons really genuinely didn’t want to associate with the Baptists in any way, is one way the movie managed to hit a spot of realism.

(4) From a plotting perspective, Rich was so obviously the prime suspect in the stealing of the LDS chapel, that (of course) I figured it couldn’t be him.  The real obvious prime suspect in stealing the chapel would have been Sister Wyngate, who had shown her opposition to virtually everything the other Mormons had been doing since the beginning.  Plus, having a Mormon be the culprit would have fit in nicely with the unifying theme of the story, since in the end it would have been shown that it wasn't a Baptist responsible for it, as all the Mormons originally thought.  Alas, the movie couldn’t even get that obvious plot point right—the entire stealing the chapel subplot was pretty meaningless, with an even more meaningless conclusion (“Yeah, I stole it…and I forgot where I left it”) (?)

(5)  Similarly, Rich doesn' t appear to suffer any consequences for burning down a house and almost killing someone, and stealing the trailer (add in assault, too...)  We hear about him starting a new profession, but nothing about the legal consequences of his actions.  Tartan seems to get off easy for his (admittedly smaller) mistake of lying to Charity...

(6) While the reverse is obvious, I'm not sure I buy why Heather Beers' character would actually fall in love with Tartan...and I didn't really buy why her character would choose the guy she did in "Charly" either (Heather's only other movie of which I'm aware).  Both guys are kind of bland and unremarkable...  Of course, if the script says they get together in the end then there's not much you can do, but maybe we should start a petition to get Heather a better 'boyfriend' in her next movie...