Tapestry

This is a terribly-made movie. In his quest to spread the word about Christian faith, a subject on which director and cowriter Ken Kushner may well be an expert, Tapestry demonstrates that he seems to lack any skills whatsoever in departments that include writing, editing, lighting, sound-recording (there is a distinct hum during all dialogue, which stops during the blackouts between scenes), and dramatic tension. The well-developed nonsense-detectors possessed by most tweens and teens will have much to detect here, including multiple instances of cliches and oversimplifications. ("Just when you think you're on top of the world, darkness may be lurking around the corner" and "The devil has many faces and many ways to kick you when you're down.")

Magalhaes, playing Ryan's wife, seems not only decades younger than her husband, but also younger than their oldest child. Kushner is lucky to have on board the gifts of the gritty and moving Burt Young as Ian and the modulated adeptness of Stephen Baldwin as Ryan, the latter doing his best while uttering mouthfuls of platitudes in badly-lighted scenes that have no beginnings and no ends. (Surprisingly, Baldwin was an executive producer.) Perhaps those appreciating the Christian sentiments will be immune to the absence of technical and artistic norms.