God Help Me (DVD)

Many moons ago, my wife was a fan of Friends. She watched the show regularly because she liked the show’s sense of humor and because she liked the feeling of connectedness it offered—the sense of being part of a well-defined culture and a community of like-minded people.

From such a perspective on Friends, Dan Olds’ direct-to-DVD release God Help Me plays like a low-budget Christian version of Friends.

Such a comparison deserves some explanation, however.

First, God Help Me, produced and written by Olds but directed by Reece Tedford, has “first time effort” stamped all over it. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course. Olds has even managed to bring his maiden endeavor successfully to market, which is more than I can say for my own similar efforts two decades ago. In fact, there’s something endearing and quirkily inspiring about a project that was clearly a labor borne of love and genuine cameraderie. At the same time, caveat emptor.

Second, God Help Me is Christian only in the sense that the slight story line—which concerns the misguided efforts of Jack, Lon, and Bridget to steer Trudy and Ryan into marital bliss—takes place in the context of the suburban Christian subculture. A great many viewers will feel right at home with Ryan and Trudy; a great many others will feel like foreigners in their own land. Like many real-life Christians that I know, Dan Olds’ characters seem to have no existence outside their church.

And that brings me to my third and final explanatory point. Just as the characters on Friends seemed to exist in an America that few of us really know (and also seemed ignorant of the fact that most Americans weren’t just like them), the characters in God Help Me seem equally insular, oblivious and self-absorbed. If you find Friends shallow and its sense of community hollow, as my wife now does, you will likely find God Help Me equally (and perhaps troublingly) so. Still, there's some value in seeing that Christians aren't all religious zealots. These are not characters lifted from Left Behind or TBN.

So to the extent that a low-budget Christian version of Friends sounds appealing to you, God Help Me will probably fill the bill. It’s light-hearted, clean, mildly amusing entertainment with particularly engaging performances by Tom Miner as Ryan and Candace Orrino as Bridget. The production values and direction are pretty decent, if home-brewed and rather workmanlike.

But if the idea simply sounds repugnant to you, it’s probably best to stay away for the time being, and perhaps await the sequel. I think we can expect better things down the road from this talented and eager production team.

Look for God Help Me at Amazon.com, or buy directly through Duststorm Productions.