We first need to clear up a few things. It's not a Christian movie. It's a movie about a Christian having an existential crisis of faith. Blue Like Jazz is my favorite book. I've read it now nine times. It's part narrative, part memoir, part introspection working out what it means to believe in Jesus in a post-modern culture. At no time is the movie preachy. It's not about that. It's not a gospel presentation wrapped up in a cute family-friendly story. It's PG13 after all. If you think about it, most of us don't live G or PG lives. Life is messy. People are messy. We are people, surrounded by people. It was refreshing to see a movie with such a heavy topic outside of the religious Christian bubble. That being said, this one won't make it into Christian bookstores. This movie has everything: drug and alcohol use, open discussion of homosexuality, a 20 ft high inflatable condom, jabs at US foreign policy, and a healthy dose of forgiveness and reconciliation.
I don't necessarily think you need to read to book first, as most book/movie snobs always claim. Though there are a few things in it for fans of the book like Don Rabbit chasing Sexy Carrot and the astronaut who floats away from the rest of his space crew for so long until his beard and hair almost cover up his face inside his helmet.
There are a few difference from the book, as most movies have. If you've read Don's lastest book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years (which I highly recommend...you'll want to climb a mountain afterwards), it chronicles the challenges and the edits he had to make to his own personal story by turning a memoir into a screen play. In the book version of Blue Like Jazz, Don hadn't met his father yet since he left Don as a boy although the book isn't chronological, and different points in his life pop up in different books so his life seems intertwined within the pages of his back catalog. Another difference is the character in the movie known as The Pope, who I assume is based on the real life character of Andrew the Protestor. The characters Tony the Beat Poet and Nadine the French girl are left out entirely of the movie, but then again 256 pages is a lot to fit into 103 minutes.
I liked the movie. I am vocal about my dislike of Christian films in general and Kirk Cameron in particular (especially after his comments on CNN this past week). But this isn't a Christian movie, like I said earlier. It's a movie about a Christian who is struggling to see where he belongs and where his faith in God belongs. I first took so strongly to Miller's book because I felt like his writing style is similar to my thought process. Quick, quirky, and inquisitive. Then I realized I was having the same crisis in my own life at the time I first read the book, and it helped me to walk through the questions I had been asking. Who is God really? How can I know Him? What does it mean to follow Him? Why does the religion of American evangelical Christianity seem so different from the teachings of Jesus? Is it just me, or does the subculture I grew up in seem totally fake and/or hypocritical?
I can't give really compare it to something else to give a "If you like _____, then you'll like the Blue Like Jazz movie" because it's an amalgam of so many types of art house genres. You'll just have to go see it for yourself. But if you liked the book, or even just thought it was "okay", then you should definitely see it. Go here to find a theatre playing it in your area.
My store is selling the book for about $3 right now if you need a copy, or you can get it on Amazon.
Other good reading about the topics discussed in the BJL movie, Lord Save Us From Your Followers. We are selling this one for $4.97 at my bookstore. There's also a documentary about it on Hulu with a similar confessional booth scene in which the idea must've been taken straight from the Blue Like Jazz book.
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Edit: Ok, I found a "If you like _____, you'll like BLJ." If you liked the Jesus>Religion video from a few months ago, you'll like BLJ.
