FORTY-SEVEN DAYS WITH JESUS

FORTY-SEVEN DAYS WITH JESUS is a faith-based family drama about a workaholic father who neglects his family for an important business meeting during an Easter vacation with his parents while his father starts telling his two children and his sister’s daughter the story about Jesus Christ’s betrayal, death and resurrection. FORTY-SEVEN DAYS WITH JESUS is good family viewing, presents a general historical overview of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and nicely builds into a moving, inspiring ending that promotes repentance, forgiveness and living out one’s Christian faith.

Joseph is a married father of two who’s making a movie about firefighters to honor his father, a retired firefighter. However, Joseph’s wife, Juliana, is upset he’s spending so much time working while neglecting her and the kids. Things between them come to a head when the family takes an Easter vacation to visit Joseph’s parents. Joseph’s producer keeps taking up Joseph’s time in Zoom meetings and phone calls.

Meanwhile, Joseph’s father starts telling the children, including Joseph’s sister’s daughter, about the last 47 days of Jesus, including His betrayal, death and resurrection. The movie re-enacts some scenes of those incidents, with musical songs. The scenes start with the crowd greeting Jesus’ entrance on a donkey in Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, and end with two of the resurrection appearances before the Apostles.

The first half of FORTY-SEVEN DAYS WITH JESUS is a little slow. However, the second half nicely builds into a moving, inspiring ending that promotes repentance, forgiveness, love, patience, kindness, truth, strength through Christ (including moral strength), and living out one’s Christian faith. Eventually, Joseph realizes he needs to live out his Christian faith by not neglecting his wife and children. A scene between Jesus and Peter provides a beautiful counterpoint to that story and message.

FORTY-SEVEN DAYS WITH JESUS has three songs that stand out above the rest. Two of them, “Mirror of My Soul” and “Grateful for You,” seem Oscar-worthy to MOVIEGUIDE®, even though the people who make the Oscar nominations usually seem to have trouble identifying the best songs. The third song, “Touch Me and See,” depicts one of the most climactic moments in the gospels.

FORTY-SEVEN DAYS WITH JESUS presents a general historical overview of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and His ministry on Earth, focusing on the last 47 days, of course. As such, it condenses a lot of the story from the New Testament, however. So, it’s meant to provide more of a child-friendly introduction to the story of Jesus in the four gospels. It’s up to parents to see that their children get a more complete exposure by reading and studying the New Testament together as the children age and as everyone grows together in love, understanding and wisdom.