{"id":52723,"date":"2016-09-22T14:12:26","date_gmt":"2016-09-22T21:12:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/?p=52723"},"modified":"2016-09-22T14:12:26","modified_gmt":"2016-09-22T21:12:26","slug":"the-hollars-producer-tom-rice-on-looking-for-christian-themes-in-movies-that-arent-necessarily-christian-movies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2016\/09\/the-hollars-producer-tom-rice-on-looking-for-christian-themes-in-movies-that-arent-necessarily-christian-movies.html","title":{"rendered":"The Hollars<\/i> producer Tom Rice on looking for Christian themes in movies that aren’t necessarily “Christian movies”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"hollars-a\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Tom Rice is a Christian. He is also a movie producer. But that doesn\u2019t mean he makes \u201cChristian movies\u201d. Instead, he says, he makes movies that reflect his Christian worldview on a broader level, and to date that has meant making uplifting films like Begin Again<\/i> (original title: Can a Song Save Your Life?<\/i>) and The Way Way Back<\/i>, as well as grittier films like the gambling-addict drama Mississippi Grind<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Rice\u2019s newest film The Hollars<\/i> \u2014 which expands to three hundred theatres this week after opening in limited release a few weeks ago \u2014 is another case in point.<\/p>\n

The film stars John Krasinski \u2014 who also directed \u2014 as a graphic novelist named John Hollar who returns to his hometown when he hears that his mother (played by Margo Martindale) has been diagnosed with a brain tumour.<\/p>\n

Along the way he reconnects with his father (Richard Jenkins), whose business is struggling financially, and his brother (Sharlto Copley), whose marriage broke up a while ago. He also finds himself facing an increasingly uncertain future of his own now that his girlfriend (Anna Kendrick) is pregnant.<\/p>\n

But the film ultimately points in a redemptive direction \u2014 partly with the help of a youth pastor (Josh Groban) who happens to be dating the brother\u2019s ex-wife.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that this is the type of film that Christians should be supporting,\u201d says Rice. \u201cThis is a movie about grace, grace in action. It\u2019s about the messiness of family but it\u2019s filled with levity and it\u2019s full of redemption, it\u2019s full of reconciliation, and it\u2019s full of forgiveness, and people are going to see God in this movie.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a perfect example of a movie that has very Christian themes, but presented in a way that anyone can embrace and identify with.\u201d<\/p>\n

The script, by Jim Strouse (Grace Is Gone<\/i>), had been kicking around for a few years before Rice saw it, and it already had Krasinski, Martindale and Jenkins attached to play the central characters. By the time Rice was approached about producing the film, Krasinski had signed on to direct as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cI read it on a plane on a Sunday, and I was laughing out loud and crying out loud, and trying to hide that I was crying out loud, and then the next day I was sitting in front of John and pitching to him why I wanted him to pick me as his producer,\u201d says Rice.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of times, I have to read scripts and imagine who would I put in this role, but I had the benefit of reading this script knowing it was the three of them, so that was such a luxury for me, to be able to fall in love with the script knowing who was playing the characters, and to be able to envision that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rice, who was born in Jackson, Mississippi, was drawn to the story partly because his own father had had a brain tumour (the hospital where his dad was treated is one of a few different hospitals used in the film), but he says he also fell in love with the script on a much more universal level because of the themes and the \u201crelatability\u201d of the characters.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis movie is reflective of real life,\u201d says Rice \u2014 and this, he says is another reason why Christians should give the film a look, even though it\u2019s not a \u201cfaith-based\u201d movie.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you go look at overtly Christian movies \u2014 I\u2019m not knocking them and God uses those \u2014 but for me, those are often very unrealistic situations,\u201d he says. \u201cThey\u2019re fantasy situations. The Christian stands up to the atheist in a symbolic battlefield with a battle cry, and it\u2019s wonderful and inspiring, but that never happens in real life.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not saying Christians shouldn\u2019t support those movies, but they also need to support really good films that aren\u2019t made specifically for them but are made to have an impact in the culture that we live in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rice points to a scene from The Hollars<\/i> \u2014 currently viewable at MinistryFlix.com<\/a> \u2014 in which John\u2019s father talks to his son about the regret he feels as he looks back on his life and wishes he had made different choices.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would encourage everybody to go download that clip, show it in your small group, show it in your youth group, show it in your family, and just use it as a topic of conversation about that,\u201d says Rice. \u201cAnd this movie is full of scenes that have those kind of relevant moments that aren\u2019t so overt in the dialogue as to alienate the majority of the moviegoing audience out there.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we as Christians can have a positive impact on our communities and our societies by making more movies like this and supporting more movies like this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rice\u2019s production company is called Sycamore Pictures, partly because he once lived on a street called Sycamore, and partly because \u201cthe sycamore tree is the tree that gave Zacchaeus the better vantage point of Jesus,\u201d says Rice, in a nod to the story from Luke 19<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And would he say the subtle Christian themes he finds in The Hollars<\/i> are present in Sycamore\u2019s earlier films too? \u201cAbsolutely,\u201d says Rice.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Way Way Back<\/i> is just an accessible, wholesome movie, and it\u2019s about the importance of mentoring. We were surprised that [Blue Like Jazz<\/i> author] Donald Miller wrote on his blog<\/a> about the ending, when [the mother] says sometimes it\u2019s better to be alone than in an abusive relationship. It was about finding your place. It was about being comfortable. There were wonderful thematic elements.<\/p>\n

\u201cBegin Again<\/i> was also very much about reconciliation and redemption, and [how when things] aren\u2019t going your way, how do you lift yourself out of it in a positive way.<\/p>\n

\u201cMississippi Grind<\/i> is about these two characters that are gambling addicts, so it was very raw, very true to that scene. Nothing gratuitous, nothing offensive or anything like that, but it was a little bit darker in tone. But it had<\/i> to be darker in tone. You can\u2019t make the point of that movie and make it a light-hearted romp. It\u2019s not a buddy comedy. The whole point of that is to show the darkness of the underbelly of that world, and what that does to the human spirit and the human condition.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut yeah, I do look for those themes,\u201d says Rice, \u201cand if you look at my body of work, you will see the recurring theme of brokenness and redemption and forgiveness and grace, because that\u2019s what I need every day and that\u2019s what I strive to give my friends and family every day.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re in this thing called life together, and that\u2019s what it\u2019s about with each other and our relationships with God, so that\u2019s what I tend to like thematically when I\u2019m reading material.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014 The photo above shows Richard Jenkins, Sharlto Copley and John Krasinski as the father and two of his sons in <\/i>The Hollars.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rice — who has also produced films like The Way Way Back<\/i> and Mississippi Grind<\/i> — says he looks for themes of brokenness, redemption, forgiveness and grace in the movies he makes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1116,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3532],"tags":[3905,3912,3906,3911,3910,3908,3907,3909],"class_list":["post-52723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-interviews","tag-begin-again-2013","tag-donald-miller","tag-hollars","tag-jim-strouse","tag-john-krasinski","tag-mississippi-grind","tag-tom-rice","tag-way-way-back"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Hollars producer Tom Rice on looking for Christian themes in movies that aren't necessarily "Christian movies"<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Rice -- who has also produced films like The Way Way Back and Mississippi Grind -- says he looks for themes of brokenness, redemption, forgiveness and grace in the movies he makes.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2016\/09\/the-hollars-producer-tom-rice-on-looking-for-christian-themes-in-movies-that-arent-necessarily-christian-movies.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Hollars producer Tom Rice on looking for Christian themes in movies that aren't necessarily "Christian movies"\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Rice -- who has also produced films like The Way Way Back and Mississippi Grind -- says he looks for themes of brokenness, redemption, forgiveness and grace in the movies he makes.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2016\/09\/the-hollars-producer-tom-rice-on-looking-for-christian-themes-in-movies-that-arent-necessarily-christian-movies.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"FilmChat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-09-22T21:12:26+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/wp.production.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/files\/2016\/09\/hollars-a.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Peter T. 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