Good Movie Despite Its Jarring Narrative Structure

Last night, after her parish council meeting, Karen came home with a plan for the night. Barb, one of our friends, had told us that she had purchased the movie Unplanned on DVD and when she walked in the door, Karen had the DVD in her hand. The movie tells the story of Abby Johnson, who was the youngest clinical director of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Texas. The movie reveals that, by her estimation, she was ultimately involved in 22,000 abortions during her tenure. During a flashback that goes back 8 years, we watched her development as a person. Eventually, she becomes a wife, a mother, and the Clinical Director.

It's an intriguing tale and one in which I felt invested. She doesn't set out to be in this role and her resistance to the realities she is facing at Planned Parenthood seem surreal. The movie ties her relationship to Planned Parenthood with another 2 year flashback, which seems jarring after the initial 8 year flashback. In the Big Picture, I understand why the movie didn't start out with a 10 year flashback and why it chose to jump back 8 years and then, almost immediately after jumping backwards 8 years, why it jumped back an additional 2 years. It does this to serve the story and to firmly establish her connection to Planned Parenthood. I cannot reveal any additional details about the relationship because I didn't warn you, at the top of this post, that it was going to include spoilers about the movie.

After the movie, I realized that the reaction to this movie was likely polarizing and, sure enough, when I looked at Rottentomatoes.com, I admit I was not super-duper surprised by the reaction of critics. As shown below, 42% of the critics didn't like it whereas 91% of the audience did like it.

At first, I wondered why there was nearly twice as many positive audience reviews as reviews by critics. As I started reading what the critics wrote, I realized their reaction of the movie was with merit. I reacted to the movie with emotion because I felt connected to Abby Johnson, as a person. My general impression is that the critics didn't like the movie because they likely felt they were watching a sermon about the evil of Planned Parenthood. This is the first review I read:
Unplanned will make you writhe in agony over how such an ugly, malicious and potentially dangerous piece of religious and political propaganda could have made its way into this world.


Honestly, I do not know what movie that critic was watching because it wasn't the movie I watched!

I sincerely think this is a movie that has to be seen to be understood. If you accept that the events that you see in the movie are factually accurate, which I did, you may find this a very disturbing movie.

I did. I went to bed almost immediately after the movie credits began and when I got to work this AM, writing this post was the first thing I did.