It’s true that when the common defense becomes unreliable, the prepared will want their safe havens to be secure.
But life isn’t so cut and dry, says part of the message within “Homestead.”
A blow-‘em-up disaster scene under the bombing of Los Angeles may be how
This Ben Smallbone movie begins with a nuclear bomb detonating in Los Angeles, but when the nuclear fallout settles, genuine slices of humanity punctuate the film’s adventurous remainder.
Ian and Jenna Ross (Neal McDonough and Dawn Olivieri), the owners of a well-stocked, secret location called Homestead, have their grain stores and underground water supplies locked in.
What happens when a family with a member suffering from a difficult disease, whose ability to prep was lesser, shows up at the gate pleading for a safe place to heal?
Will Ian, Homestead’s chief protector, give entry?
The circumstances are beyond what the civilized mind can imagine, as fears about “us and them” are taken to an extreme. How would essential trust be built in this “SHTF” scenario? Where is the right balance between protecting and sharing?
Questions such as these make for relevant drama on several counts.
“Homestead” is written by Phillip Abraham and Leah Bateman, a married couple working in the entertainment industry together. Their marriage may contribute to the realistic dialogue between Ian and Jenna, and is a welcome, unique factor in the “Homestead” script.
In a reflective line in the script, Jenna Ross says, “Everyone’s wondering how the world ended, but this is the story of how it began again.”
Perhaps that positive energy of freedom being reset is what is driving the large and growing homesteading movement. Though counting the number of people who’ve exited the system to raise their food is difficult, it has been estimated at 2.2 million Americans in the millennial generation are homesteaders.
Don’t expect that in headlines. To paraphrase Gil Scott-Heron:
The homesteading will not be televised.
not be televised, not be televised.
The homesteading will be live.
The film deals with topics of revolutionary changes without and within. Capitalizing on a growing audience interested in such subjects, “Homestead” joins other films and shows on small farm communities such “The Lunatic Farmer,” the multi-season “Clarkson’s Farm,” and, in its own way, 2024’s “Civil War.”
Rather than a full movie about escaping LA, reaping harvests of food when it counts, and picking off interlopers by rifle, “Homestead” is also a Bible-based message about walking with the prudence and kindness worthy of God, no matter the trials one faces.
Some more metropolitan establishment reviewers have called that a relief about the movie, since they find prepping films “preachy” or off-putting, Why spoil the unity a movie like this can achieve and make survival with humanity an either-or matter?
The team at Angel Studios and “Homestead” might have you ask, as we all start anew daily in one form or another, what spiritual ground are we standing on?
NOTE: “Homestead,” and the first two episodes of the “Homestead” TV series are now available to Angel Studios’ Guild Members.
The post ‘Homestead’ Goes Deeper than Apocalyptic Prep appeared first on Hollywood in Toto.
0 Comments