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The Gospel
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Is it age appropriate?
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Not age appropriate for kids under 11, age appropriate for kids over 13; suggested age 11. -
Is it any good?
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Common Sense says
R&B star comes home to look after ailing family.
updated 07.04.08
Why We Rated This 
for Ages 11–13
What to watch out for
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Violence :
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Sex :
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Language:
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Consumerism:
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Drinking, drugs, & smoking:
What Parents Need to Know
About The Gospel
Parents need to know that this film includes two scenes showing parents' deaths, and ongoing discussions about how to cope with such loss and the resulting anger and sadness. The film includes mildly sexual images (a husband and wife appear in bed together) and early on, an R&B dance performance featuring gyrating bodies. Focused on family tensions, the film includes various scenes showing discord between father and son, husband and wife, a couple trying to get back together, and former best friends. In an early scene, characters briefly smoke, dance suggestively, and drink in a red-lit nightclub. Later, in despair, a character drinks alone in his home, then while he is driving.
Read our full review by Cynthia Fuchs
Families Can Talk About
- Families can talk about the long-standing hostility between father and son: assuming it's 15 years between their meetings, the son sustains and acts out his anger at his father in ways the film frames as self-destructive (his turn from the church to pop stardom, excessive sex and drinking). How do the son and father reconcile? How does their relationship mirror others in the film, between other family members (husbands and wives, in particular)? How does the movie present the church -- as a source of salvation, a site of corruption and self-interest, or a neutral ground where individuals are responsible for their own actions?
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