Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul. begins with and eventually circles back to Trinitie Childs (Regina Hall), the wife of a disgraced megachurch pastor trying to win back his congregation. But the irony of the film is that both the character and Hall are overshadowed by Sterling K. Brown’s electric performance as that problematic pastor, Lee-Curtis Childs.
Make no mistake, Hall is terrific—sharply comic in the broader scenes, while also allowing little glimpses of Trinitie’s inner turmoil before she shuts them away behind her “first lady” facade. Brown, however, vacuums up the movie in a way that’s both entrancing and entirely true to the complicated character he’s playing. Fierce and fragile, Lee-Curtis preaches up a storm, with enough terror in his eyes to make you think he might believe some of it. Both Brown and the movie are honest about the depths of this pastor’s depravity, yet he’s hardly a villainous caricature. In one scene, Lee-Curtis practices his comeback sermon (punching the air like a boxer) and a parolee picking up trash nearby (Mike Dyl Anthony) approaches him. He tells Lee-Curtis that one of his sermons saved his life and that he doesn’t believe the news reports about him. In response, Brown holds his body in a way that is at once hulked-up and deflated, because Lee-Curtis knows that the message he preached was real, but that the reports of his sins are also true.
Ideally, of course, Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul. would have room for both Lee-Curtis and Trinitie’s stories. Writer-director Adamma Ebo, making her feature filmmaking debut, certainly attempts that (and Brown and Hall play wonderfully off each other). But the movie is hampered by an inconsistent format. At times a mockumentary, with direct addresses to a mostly unseen camera crew, the film also includes more private moments that play like a traditional narrative. The film doesn’t have to choose a lane, of course, but the complexity here requires a dexterity Honk for Jesus. doesn’t quite have. Still, Ebo displays an incisive wit and strong, critical voice—a tragicomic section in which Trinitie reluctantly engages in “praise mime” offers evidence of both—and in Hall and Brown she has two pros who know how to make the most of her material. She’s a filmmaker to watch, especially when working with talent like this.
(8/30/2022)
