Neither Fresh nor Rotten: How I Grade Films
A movie is more than the sum of its parts
I may be a fan of movies, but I’m no fan of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) rating system. It may give an inkling of what kind of content a movie contains, but nothing more.
The rating system used by the Catholic News Service (CNS) is more valuable for “assessing a film’s moral and spiritual significance,” although it also has its limitations: “A film that has little artistic, entertainment, or moral and spiritual value can get the same rating as the best moral drama, provided only that it avoids objectionable content.”
Thus, in the spirit of Protestantism, I have concocted a classification system of my own making. Not that this is my 95 Theses—more like my Three Explanatory Sub-Theses.
My system has evolved over the years. At first, I rated a film based on two criteria: its Artistic Merit (AM) and my own Personal Marks (PM). My desire was to provide a clear distinction between the objective and the subjective. A poorly made film might entertain me, whereas a high caliber film might leave me cold and unemotional. I wanted to separate what I liked from what I thought was good.
A few years later, I revamped my system to include three separate tiers of criticism: Content (C), Artistry (A), and Preference (P). Based on the separate ratings each of these three sections received, I compiled an aggregate CAP score, with an overall Tomatometer-like percentage.
Moving forward, I will maintain my three-tiered approach; it provides a suitable paradigm for impartiality, allowing me to appraise the three aspects of a film independently of each other. However, I’ve adjusted the criteria for the Content (C) section, and I’ve eliminated the cumulative percentage, the reason for which I will explain shortly. But first, below is an updated description of each of my three levels of evaluation.
Content (C)
For a while, I appraised a film based on any possibly problematic content. But the reality is that I am not attempting to replicate content sites like Screenit, PluggedIn, or Movieguide. What I will focus on is content that I myself find problematic—or, at the very least, what I deem worthy of recognition as problematic. I acknowledge that not everyone, not even professing Christians, will share all of my personal convictions. With that rubric in place, let me explain how I approach a film’s content.
Problematic material has typically been divided into three major categories: sex, violence, and profanity. There are at least two problems with this approach. First, the mere presence of one or more of these three categories is not, in and of itself, wrong. Even the Bible addresses sexual, violent, and profane topics in word, thought, and deed, and it does so without being prudish or careless.1 These topics can be appropriate in a film when handled properly. The problem comes when they are addressed obscenely, gratuitously, or pornographically. (And, honestly, even then there are disagreements on what exactly constitutes “gratuitous.”) Furthermore, a good or bad message may be offset by faulty or self-contradictory storytelling methods.
The second problem with the “big three” content areas is that they are reductionist. What about representations of masculinity and femininity? What about a film’s attitude toward spiritual realities? What about a film’s treatment of its actors—does it honor them or objectify them? What about the worldview the narrative is promoting (directly or indirectly)? These are questions worth considering.
As such, when I address the content of a movie, I will deal with the thematic and moral elements in the film that I’d consider either objectionable or laudable, especially as viewed from a Christian perspective. I may or may not address one or more of the “big three.”
Artistry (A)
Here, I will focus on artistic elements of a film that catch my attention: screenplay, cinematography, acting, directing, editing, musical score, and so on. These can, to a certain degree, be dealt with in a more objective way than the other two sections. A bundle of clichéd sayings equals bad writing. A microphone in the shot equals bad cinematography. A jump cut equals bad editing. And so on.
Preference (P)
This is where I will share my personal reaction to the movie: did I find it enjoyable, engaging, boring, infuriating, or a combination of the above? Did I like the film? Did it cause me to think deeply, illuminating new insights about the world in which we live? Do I personally consider it worthwhile, either because of or in spite of its content and artistry?
The C.A.P. Rating System
So there you have it: a movie review formula divided into three parts. I will give a numeric rating of 0-10 for each section, 0 being horrible and 10 being amazing. On occasion, a film’s Content (C) section might receive both a positive and negative number rating (similar to the system used by my friend Steven D. Greydanus). This is designed to show that a film can contain both positive and negative moral elements.
There is, however, one significant change I am making—a change of omission. As mentioned earlier, I used to combine the three separate ratings to calculate a total CAP score—an overall percentage that reflected my recommendation, or lack thereof. I have decided that such a practice represents “a gross oversimplification of how movies work and how movie reviews work—or ought to work.”2
For example, I gave The Last Duel a CAP score of 57%, whereas Silence received a 43%. On the surface, this indicates I recommend the former over the latter. But the former’s issues are moral, whereas the latter’s are theological. Comparing the two films with an aggregated summary score is like comparing eggnog to eggplant.
Besides, while I enjoyed The Last Duel immensely more than Silence, and though I would watch it again over Silence in a heartbeat, I would actually recommend Silence over The Last Duel for a Christian audience. That’s not even because I think Silence has less problematic content. The last quarter of Silence is, in my estimation, seriously flawed; it will drive many stringently orthodox conservative Christians (like myself) up a fifty foot wall. But the problematic content of Silence (which is easy to detect and reject) is far different from the problematic content in The Last Duel (with its pornographic treatment of women).
The aim of my movie reviews is to avoid a simplistic rating, as if an entire film can be reduced to a letter grade or numeric value. A movie is more than just the sum total of its parts. When faced with aggregation or comprehension, I choose the latter.
Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me.3
As film critic Joseph W. Smith III writes in his book Sex & Violence in the Bible, “[Scripture’s] approach to indecent matters is not that of a twenty-first-century schoolboy, nor is it that of a nineteenth-century Victorian housewife” (p. 216).
I am borrowing a quote from my friend E. Stephen Burnett in his article entitled Revealed: Here’s the Little Trap I Set to Expose Rotten Tomatoes.
This concluding remark functions both as a serious and as a tongue-in-cheek statement.