There's a scene around the middle of Ordinary Angels in which hairdresser and accidental activist Sharon Stevens (Hilary Swank) meets with the board of the hospital that has served her friend Ed Schmitt (Alan Ritchson) with hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills, for both his late wife and his sick daughter, Michelle (Emily Mitchell). She pleads with the administrators to ease Ed's burden, as he continues to pursue costly treatment for Michelle's rare liver disease while she awaits a transplant.
The movie frames Sharon's ability to persuade the board to forgive Ed's debt as a major victory, a sign of her unwavering dedication to his cause. But there's no questioning of the underlying structure that put Ed in that position in the first place, which requires Sharon to devote so much time and energy to constant fundraising in order to get Michelle the care she needs. In its celebration of community support for one person's medical expenses, Ordinary Angels is basically GoFundMe: The Movie.
That lack of a wider perspective is indicative of the simple-minded dullness of this faith-based film, produced by Christian cinema powerhouses Andrew and Jon Erwin (I Can Only Imagine, Jesus Revolution) and directed by genre veteran Jon Gunn (Do You Believe?, The Case for Christ). The characters don't need to address the fundamental flaws in the American health care system, because they have God on their side.
The religious elements in Ordinary Angels are actually rather minor, confined to a handful of conversations and a couple of church scenes, but the message is clear and cloying. Sharon is an alcoholic and a neglectful mother to her adult son, and she only finds purpose in her life when she spots a newspaper story about Michelle's plight. Devoting herself to this higher calling allows her to quit drinking and reconnect with her child, with only momentary setbacks on her road to salvation.
Swank brings some liveliness to the role, even as every beat of Sharon's story is predetermined and obvious. Ritchson — known for playing the grim, taciturn title character on hit Amazon Prime Video series Reacher — channels similar energy into the stoic, stubborn Ed, who initially has trouble accepting help from this pushy stranger who shows up on his doorstep one day with an envelope full of cash. Thanks to the encouragement of his incredibly patient mother, Barbara (Nancy Travis), he opens his home and his heart to Sharon.
Sharon bonds with Michelle and her older sister Ashley (Skywalker Hughes), but her relationship with Ed remains purely platonic. That's both refreshing and, presumably, true to the real-life story that the movie is based on, but the absence of romantic chemistry leaves the characters with no chemistry at all.
The screenplay is credited to the unlikely duo of actress/novelist Meg Tilly and filmmaker Kelly Fremon Craig, and maybe an earlier iteration had more of the raw honesty and humor of Craig's smart and insightful teen films The Edge of Seventeen and Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. If so, it's been replaced by prefab emotions and platitudes that belong on cross-stitch patterns.
Michelle's story, while theoretically heartwarming, is not particularly unique, and the filmmakers fail to find a way to make it stand out. The climax features an exaggerated, protracted version of the actual events leading up to Michelle's liver transplant, in a contrived effort to add suspense to material that could barely fill a local news report. The characters feel good about the small amount of good they've accomplished, but neither the audience nor the world at large has been moved at all.
ORDINARY ANGELS
