Movie Review: The RM

In my creative writing class, my professor once counseled us to always have the ending in mind from the beginning. He drew up an analogy of shooting at a target on the side of a barn with your rifle. You could draw the target and then shoot at the target. You may hit the bullseye, but chances are you will miss, or at least be a little bit off. Better, he says, to shoot the barn, then draw the target around it. You'll never miss.

The RM did the former rather than the latter, and it missed completely.

The movie itself starts out fairly strong. Jared Phelps is a newly returned missionary who has very distinct visions of how his return home will be - mainly with a good job, BYU attendance and marrying the girlfriend he left behind. This, predictably, falls apart, with him not able to get his job back, getting rejected by BYU and having his girlfriend run off with a boy named Kirby (ironically, the name of the starring actor, of whose name all the characters, including Kirby Heyborne himself, makes fun of). On top of that, his parents forget his release date and never pick him up at the airport, and also fail to tell him about them moving to another house, as well as the fact that the mother is pregnant with another child.

It's a story full of stereotypes. To call the elders quorum Jared attends at home "dysfunctional" or "lazy" would be an understatement. The poor returned missionary goes through the horrific adjustment period, with one painful experience after another, such as discovering his car got sold, losing a rashly purchased engagement ring in the trash and having to go dumpster diving after it and randomly developing some excrutiating boils. Along the way, his wayward childhood friend questions the point of his mission, asking him when the blessings he was supposedly promised would come. The acting, though at times cheesy, helps propel the basic nugget of the story - Why does it seem that after we work so hard, the Lord appears to forsake us? It's a deep question which they do a fairly good job in bringing up to the forefront without beating you over the head with it.

Unfortunately, the movie never answers this question and merely falls apart in the end. Jared, of course, meets a girl who he likes, and they end up spending more and more time together. But a horrific misunderstanding gets him in jail and the girl loses all respect for him. It felt like the writers suddenly realized that something good had to happen to this poor kid eventually, and finding themselves painted into a corner, they pull a miraculous deus ex machina and fast forward the rest of the movie. Suddenly, he's marrying the girl and everything is happy once again. Explained within roughly five minutes.

It's rushed, it's not very plausible and really ruins what could have been a good movie. There are times where I'd raise an eyebrow, but for the most part, the movie did a good job in poking fun and caricturizing some of the more humorous parts of Mormon culture without any outright derision of it. Yes, most of the jokes are rather silly and sometimes downright stupid, but there were parts where I was chuckling out loud (such as when Jared ends up sharing a hotel room with a paranoid, crazed lunatic who screams in his sleep). The whole thing feels like Meet the Parents - in the sense that nothing, despite his best efforts, goes right for the protagonist - except with a returned missionary and a lot cleaner. It's a shame the ending disintegrated. It could have been something good.

Pros: Most returned missionaries who have suffered post-mission depression will definitely empathize and relate to some of the trauma undergone by our plucky and unlucky protagonist (I know I did). Members in general will get a few chuckles out of the jokes pulled on our sometimes bizarre Utah culture.

Cons: Watch the ending once to see some form of resolution, and then never watch it again. Seriously.