Shane Sooter | Through the Shattered Lens

Ten years after Nikki Cominskey had the world’s most awkward dinner date with Jesus (played by Jefferson Moore), Nikki’s daughter is flying to Portland.

Having just graduated from high school, Sarah (Ruby Lewis) wants to attend an exclusive art school but she fears that she may not get the scholarship that she would need. If that wasn’t stressful enough, she’s also not getting along with her parents. She never thought that her mom and dad were actually seriously about all that church stuff but it turns out that they were and now they are scandalized to discover that Sarah doesn’t even consider herself to be a believer! The night before Sarah’s trip, Nikki sat her daughter down and told her about the night that she had dinner with Jesus. Now, Sarah is worried that her mother has lost her mind.

Because Sarah is flying the least efficient airline in existence, there’s a layover in Dallas on the way to Portland. That leaves Sarah a lot of time to get to know the man who is sitting next to her on the airplane. His name is Yesh and he says that he comes from a small town in the east. He also says that he’s a counselor and that he works with his father. When Sarah asks what Yesh’s father does, Yesh says that it’s not easy to explain but that his father has a lot of responsibility. He’s in charge of many things. Sarah thinks that Yesh is a friendly stranger but, since he’s played by Jefferson Moore, the audience knows who he actually is.

Yesh and Sarah discuss religion. Sarah says she hates religion. Yesh says that he agrees, because people have twisted religion to satisfy their own base desires. Sarah says that she can’t understand her parents. Yesh says that her parents love her just as his father loves everyone. Sarah says that she wants to be an artist. Yesh tells her to be sure not to fall asleep during art history class. (Hold on, Yesh! I majored in art history! Art history rocks!) Sarah assumes that Yesh is an atheist and gets a little annoyed when Yesh reveals that he’s actually not. Yesh reads her a poem and explains that it was written by his father and that it’s in the Bible. Sarah is amazed because she thought the Bible was just full of rules. She doesn’t seem to notice that Yesh said that his father wrote the Bible but that’s because Sarah doesn’t really come across as being that smart.

You can pretty much guess where all of this leading. With the exception of one surprisingly well-handled scene in which Sarah discusses the trauma that turned her away from religion, Another Perfect Stranger follows the same storyline as The Perfect Stranger. The main difference is that Sarah is a teenager and the conversation takes place on a plane instead of at a restaurant. Once again, Yesh wins every argument because the screenwriter is on his side and Sarah is incapable of coming up with any counterpoints that aren’t easily dismissed. Unfortunately, this film is also 20 minutes longer than The Perfect Stranger and pace is much slower. The majority of Sarah’s dialogue sounds like it was written by a computer program designed to basically approximate the speaking habits of someone under the age of 30. On the plus side, Sarah is not quite as humiliated by Jesus as her mother was.

This was followed by one more Perfect Stranger film, which was only 61 minutes long and which I’ll take a look at tomorrow.

The 2005 film, The Perfect Stranger, opens with Nikki Cominsky (Pamela Brumley) feeling very stressed and underappreciated.

She’s an attorney and she really should be heading off for work but first, she has to make her daughter’s school lunch. (Her daughter is not extremely appreciative.) Meanwhile, her husband has just informed her that he’s canceling their date night because he has to go to a baseball game with a client! Nikki was so looking forward to going to a nice restaurant. Finally, to top all off, the neighbors are religious and they keep inviting Nikki to church. Argggh! The frustration!

Nikki gets to work and the aggravation continues. Her administrative assistant calls her “Mrs. Cominskey,” making Nikki feel old. (“Mrs. Cominskey is my mother-in-law!” Nikki snaps.) Plus, there’s a weird note on Nikki’s desk. The note is inviting her to dinner and it is signed Jesus. At first, Nikki is convinced that her neighbors somehow broke into the office and left the note on her desk. But then she realizes how weird that sounds. Instead, she decides that the note is from her husband. Obviously, he canceled his plans and they’re going to go out to dinner. Yay! But why would her husband sign the letter as Jesus? “He must be joking,” Nikki says, with a laugh. Okay, then. Everyone has their own sense of humor.

Nikki heads to the restaurant straight after work and discovers …. that her husband is not there. Her husband went to the baseball game. Her husband was not playing a joke on her. He really is the type of insensitive idiot who would break a date with his wife and go to a baseball game with client. (You deserve better, Nikki!) However, her neighbors aren’t there either. Instead, there’s a blonde man (Jefferson Moore) wearing a suit who says that his name is Jesus and he wants to have a conversation with her. Nikki’s first instinct is to leave but Jesus offers to pay for dinner. That changes Nikki’s mind and I guess that’s understandable. A free dinner is a free dinner!

Nikki and Jesus go on to have the most awkward dinner date ever. Nikki wants to talk about how annoyed she is with her life. Jesus wants to talk about Heaven. Nikki complains about religion. Jesus tells her that her problem is not with religion but with religious people. Nikki says that she feels like she could get just as much out of being a Hindu or Muslim as she could out of being a Christian. Jesus laughs at her. There’s one long stretch of time when we just see Jesus and Nikki talking but we don’t actually hear what they’re saying. Maybe they’re discussing the food, which does look pretty good.

The Perfect Stranger is an example of a popular sort of faith-based film, one in which Jesus has dinner or coffeewith an unbeliever and basically spends an hour telling them that they’re stupid. Jesus always has the advantage in these films, largely because the screenwriter is on his side and the non-believers are usually limited to repeating a bunch of clichés about all the bad things in the world. That’s certainly the case with The Perfect Stranger, in which Nikki is not only an agnostic but also a bit of a flake. One gets the feeling that many of these films was made less to reach nonbelievers and more to give believers a chance to laugh at the other side. Then again, consider how negatively most people of faith are portrayed in mainstream films, one could argue that the faith-based film industry is basically looking at Hollywood and yelling, “I learned it from watching you!”

Anyway, the important thing is that Nikki felt better about her life and she got a free dinner. Good for Nikki.