2014’s The Song tells the story of Jed King (Alan Powell).

Jed is a singer-songwriter.  He is also the son of David King, a country-western superstar who drank too much, smoked too much, and had an extramarital affair with Jed’s mother.  (He initially spotted her while she was bathing in a lake.)  After her then-husband killed himself, Jed’s mother married David but their marriage was fraught with difficulty.  Jed grew up in a conflicted household.  After his father died, Jed found himself expected to carry on in David’s name.  Try as he might, he found himself permanent overshadowed by the legacy of David King.

(If all this sounds familiar, that’s because it’s a country-western version of the story of King David, Bathsheba, and Solomon.)

While performing at a wine festival, Jed meets and falls in love with Rose Jordan (Ali Faulkner).  They marry and start a family.  Jed writes a song about Rose and it becomes his first legitimate hit.  Years later, Jed is a superstar, touring while his wife raises their son.  It’s an arrangement that seems to work fine until Jed meets his new opening act, fiddler Shelby Bale (Caitlin Nichol-Thomas).

Soon, in the tradition of Johnny Cash, Jed King is drinking too much and popping pills and losing his way on the road.  He comes home only briefly and Rose starts to feel as if the only reason he even bothers is so he can have sex.  Jed’s life is soon falling apart….

The Song is based on Song of Songs and the story of King Solomon and, to give credit where credit is due, the film is actually pretty clever in the way it updates the story.  If you know the story, it makes sense that David and Jed King would both be musicians.  King David spying Bathsheba in her bath becomes David King spying Bathsheba in a lake.  Naamah, the only one of Solomon’s wives to be named, becomes Rose Jordan.  (Naamah was said to be from what is now Jordan.)  The Queen of Sheba, who tempted Solomon into sin and paganism, becomes Shelby Bale.  David and Solomon were rules.  David King and his son Jed are celebrities and really, there’s not that much difference nowadays.  The film’s dialogue and especially Jed’s thoughts (heard in voice over) are largely borrowed from Song of Songs and again, the film actually does a good job of modernizing them without getting away from the main theme.  This is one of the rare faith-based films that’s not only willing to frankly discuss sex but which also acknowledges that sexual desire is a normal thing and nothing to be ashamed of.  There’s a maturity to this film that you don’t often find in the faith-based genre.

As you can probably guess, I really like The Song.  It’s well-acted, well-directed, and the film looks great.  It might some like faint praise to say that The Song looked like a real movie but, again, that’s an accomplishment for this particular genre.  Alan Powell and Ali Faulkner had wonderful romantic chemistry.  That said, my favorite performance came from Caitlin Nichol-Thomas, who turned Shelby Bale into a true force of chaos.  The Song remains a favorite of mine.