Abby Johnson only wanted to help women, so when a woman running a Planned Parenthood booth asked her if she'd be interested in volunteering, she agreed. She became a clinic escort, and her diligence led her to be hired as director of the clinic. Through her work with Planned Parenthood, she was involved in some 22,000 abortions -- but one day, she witnessed something that changed everything.
Unplanned is based on a book written by Abby Johnson, which is basically her autobiography. So the movie is based on a true story. It had a very modest budget of around six million dollars and had several struggles in its making. One of those struggles included having difficulty finding any television or radio stations to advertise for it, based on its controversial nature. So it relied primarily on word-of-mouth and the popularity of Abby Johnson, herself, and made more money in its opening weekend than expected, leading to being shown in more theaters on its second weekend.
The movie is really a mixed bag. It was made by the same people who made the God's Not Dead series, which had better production values than a good number of Christian films, but still were not great films in their own right. Unfortunately Unplanned is not any better as a film, from a production standpoint. But its subject matter is important and makes the film worth seeing. And there are definitely some things about the film which worked. It must be stated that the film is rated R, but with good reason (despite the protests of many pro-life people I've seen so far). It is true that the MPAA rating system seems pretty arbitrary in which films it assigns an R rating, but this film really does deserve it. It's a tu quoque fallacy to argue that because worse films than this receive a PG-13 rating, this film should be PG-13, also. It's rated R for violent/disturbing images, and there are certainly those. It very graphically not only depicts an ultrasound D&E procedure, but it also graphically depicts a chemical abortion (by RU486). This latter scene actually made me nauseous, it was so realistic. There's also a scene in which an abortion was botched and a teenage girl hemorrhages in the recovery room. There are also a few mild profanities, which is surprising coming from a Pure Flix film (two "dammits", one "ass", and a couple instances of "pissed off"). Other than this, there really wasn't any objectionable content in the film. That's mainly the extent of the objectionable content that might turn some people off.
Like I said, the movie is a mixed bag, and there are some good things to commend the film. I'll begin with those.
Good Points
To reiterate, the movie is very realistic about its depiction of abortion, so realistic that I even became nauseous during one scene. So they went all-out in making the abortion procedure as realistic as possible and definitely succeeded. This movie shows the graphic reality of abortion without pulling any punches. Abortion is not an easy thing but is a violent procedure, and even having an abortion chemically can be dangerous and violent for the woman (especially for the child, which is killed in every successful abortion).
Several of the scenes worked on an emotional level. The acting in the film was generally pretty bad, but standout performances were by Robia Scott, who played Cheryl, the woman who gave Abby her job at the clinic, Ashley Bratcher, who played Abby Johnson (though there was a little bit of a disconnect for me since she doesn't look anything like Abby Johnson, so sometimes it was difficult for me to believe her in the role), and Anisa Nyell Johnson in an unnamed role, pleading for her daughter not to abort her grandchild. Scenes like the aforementioned one where a woman pleads for her daughter not to abort her grandchild, the fateful scene in which Abby watches the ultrasound abortion, the scene where Abby has her RU486 in her bathroom, leaving a bloody mess, and the scene where the abortionist has to rush to save a teenage girl from bleeding to death because they won't call 911, are all emotionally impactful scenes that were filmed and acted well.
There are also things you'll learn about the inner workings of Planned Parenthood. This was a major point among most of the people I talked to and read Facebook posts about regarding the film. Many people working for Planned Parenthood really do think they're doing good for women, but many are also pretty terrible. In the film, Cheryl was pretty much a moustache-twirling villain. There was a scene after Abby quits in which Cheryl confronts her outside the clinic in which I actually laughed out loud at how over-the-top she seemed. However, from what I've heard, Abby insists that she actually was like that. So while a villain like this wouldn't be a good thing in a film like this (she was much worse than any of the atheists in God's Not Dead), if this was an accurate portrayal of the person then there wasn't really anything that could be done about it.
Bad Points
Now for the bad points. The bad points have to do primarily with production value. Unplanned is not a well-made film. This doesn't detract from the good points, as like I said, there are several scenes which worked emotionally, and the abortion scenes aren't sugar-coated. But regarding movie structure and other elements, the movie really suffers.
I already mentioned the bad acting. There are a few good performances, but for the most part, the acting is bland. One of the worst offenders is the little girl who played the Johnsons' daughter. At the beginning of the film, she ran out to ask her mom not to leave for work and to stay and play with her, and she was practically smiling while she said it (which didn't seem to be appropriate, given the scene). It's notoriously difficult to find good child actors and when you find a bad one, it can really drag a movie down. I won't belabor the point here or call out any of the other actors for poor performances. I listed the standout performances above.
The movie structure was also bad. It was the wrong creative choice to tell the movie primarily by flashback. The time jumps made the movie feel disjointed and disorganized (I've heard from a few people that it made them feel lost at times). But the biggest issue was starting the film out with the ultrasound abortion that inspired Abby to leave Planned Parenthood. This was bad for a couple of reasons. First, since they glanced over the scene near the end of the film, it really made Abby's decision to leave feel like it was because she was getting in trouble at work, not because of the ultrasound abortion she witnessed. This was a criticism of Abby's story when she first started telling it, that the timeline she gave didn't add up and some of the events of the day didn't seem true. So to film the movie in this way really felt kind of oblivious in the wake of these particular criticisms. The only way you'd know it was the ultrasound that led to Abby's leaving would be if you were already familiar with Abby's story. Second, the ultrasound abortion is the climax of the story -- you don't begin a film or book with the climax. The climax is what everything builds to. Since this was the incident that led to Abby leaving Planned Parenthood and becoming pro-life, it needed to be near the end of the film, with all the other events leading up to it. Having this event at the beginning of the film was a baffling decision, and leads me to wonder if they even test screened the film (though maybe they didn't, since the controversial nature of it meant they had to be pretty secretive in the filming of it).
Another strike against the film was the incessant narration. A little narration is fine for a film to help establish some context that is needed to understand the film. But movies are a visual medium. In a good movie, you show, you don't tell. Telling, rather than showing, is laziness when it comes to a film. If you're going to just have narration throughout the whole thing, you might as well just read the book or find an e-book version of it. The narration would often say things that they should have just shown in the film, and sometimes what was narrated was actually different than what was actually shown on screen. An example that I can remember of this last point was in one of the recovery room scenes. The narrator said that the women were disheveled, in the fetal position, etc., but no one on screen actually appeared that way. It might as well have just been the waiting room.
One last point to mention, which might be considered either good, bad, or perhaps a combination is the way that people are portrayed in this film. The film tried to present a balanced approach, with radical mean pro-life people yelling at women as they walked into the clinic, and nice, caring clinic escorts and Planned Parenthood workers. However, the actual portrayal of these people is a bit dubious. As Jay Watts mentioned in an interview with the Postmodern Realities podcast (episode #117, Unplanned: An Imperfect But Brave Film), the pro-life people who were actually there have said that they never actually acted that way at the clinic when Johnson was working and volunteering there. Additionally, some of my friends who are sidewalk counselors have said that clinic escorts are usually nasty and brutish toward the pro-life peaceful protesters there). So in an effort to be fair and balanced, many of the people may not be accurately represented there.
Conclusion
I have heard this movie has changed some people's minds on the issue of abortion from pro-choice to pro-life. Other pro-choice people have said it only reinforces their pro-choice stance (presumably because they believed the information presented in the film to be false). The movie is likely to change some people's minds who are in the "mushy middle," so to speak, or perhaps even in the "personally pro-life but politically pro-choice" camp. I don't see it changing the minds of hardline pro-choice people. Also, as I mentioned, it's not a well constructed film. But there are several things the film does really well, and if you can overlook the bad production values, there is much you can get out of the film, and that makes the film worth seeing, if you haven't yet. And perhaps take a friend or family member, as they might be more apt to change their mind if they have someone whose opinion they respect see it with them and available to answer any questions they may have.
Grade: C
I give the film overall a C. Despite its bad production values, it has several redeeming qualities. It is still worth seeing for these qualities.
Unplanned
Directed by: Chuck Konzelman, Cary Solomon
Written by: Chuck Konzelman, Cary Solomon
Starring:
Ashley Bratcher as Abby Johnson
Brooks Ryan as Doug Johnson
Robia Scott as Cheryl
Jared Lotz as Shawn Carney
Emma Elle Roberts as Marilisa Carney
Robin DeMarco as Kathleen
Robert Thomason as Mike
Tina Toner as Renee
Sarah Hernandez as Elena
Maura Corsini as Megan
Lezl Gonzales as Taylor
Kaiser Johnson as Jeff Paradowski
Alexander Kane as Mark
Stacey Bradshaw as Karen
Najah Bradley as Rhonda
Anisa Nyell Johnson as Rhonda's Mom
Lila Rose as News Reporter
Anthony Levatino as Doctor #1
