Honk For Jesus. Save Your Soul – first-look review

Beyond the shal­low cor­po­rate lan­guage of ​“diver­si­ty” and ​“rep­re­sen­ta­tion”, there is some­thing much more valu­able – cul­tur­al under­stand­ing. More than sim­ply putting Black and Brown faces in front of the cam­era, films that demon­strate a real under­stand­ing of the cul­ture its por­tray­ing have real, last­ing val­ue. Adamma Ebo’s Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul is one of those films, giv­ing a thought­ful glimpse into South­ern Bap­tist cul­ture, zero­ing in on the preda­to­ry nature of megachurch­es and the celebri­ty pas­tors who drain mon­ey from their con­gre­ga­tions to fuel their lav­ish lifestyles.

It’s a very spe­cif­ic sto­ry, like­ly alien to those with no con­nec­tion to the South­ern Evan­gel­i­cal com­mu­ni­ty in Amer­i­ca, and Ebo doesn’t go out of her way to spell every­thing out. Despite pre­mier­ing at Sun­dance in front of major­i­ty-white (vir­tu­al) audi­ences, Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul. refus­es to spoon-feed its sub­ject mat­ter to the incu­ri­ous viewer.

Told in both mock­u­men­tary and straight­for­ward dra­mat­ic style, Ebo’s debut fea­ture chron­i­cles a few days in the life of Pas­tor Lee-Cur­tis Childs (Ster­ling K Brown) and his wife Trin­i­ty (Regi­na Hall) as they plan their come­back in the wake of sex­u­al assault alle­ga­tions. The alle­ga­tions are against Lee-Cur­tis, but most of the work involved in their rebrand falls on Trin­i­ty, nick­named ​“First Lady”, who bears the brunt of her husband’s reck­less and preda­to­ry behav­iour. Their church, Wan­der the Greater Paths, is haem­or­rhag­ing fol­low­ers threat­en­ing to put an end to Lee-Curtis’s career and the deca­dent lifestyle he and Trin­i­ty share.

From the begin­ning, it’s clear that Trin­i­ty is a woman at the end of her rope deal­ing with a man unable to see beyond his own needs and desires. She put all of her eggs in one bas­ket, and now they’re rot­ten and the bas­ket is com­ing apart. Mak­ing mat­ters worse, there’s an up-and-com­ing church called Heaven’s House run by mar­ried pas­tors Shaku­ra (Nicole Beharie) and Keon Sumpter (Con­phi­d­ance) that’s been poach­ing their congregation.

Not only are the Sumpters young and lik­able they have some­thing their elders do not – a hap­py mar­riage. The jux­ta­po­si­tion of the two cou­ples pokes holes in the way our Black elders view what a good Chris­t­ian rela­tion­ship looks like. While the Sumpters preach togeth­er, shar­ing the stage equal­ly, Trin­i­ty sits behind Lee-Cur­tis on stage, seen but rarely heard.

As Trin­i­ty, Hall is on anoth­er lev­el, per­fect­ly embody­ing the kind of woman who has ded­i­cat­ed her life to look­ing after a man too self­ish and misog­y­nis­tic to realise how much he needs her. She’s a mas­ter of the fake smile, hid­ing her feel­ings under an expen­sive church hat. But despite her mar­i­tal strug­gles, Trin­i­ty is still com­plic­it, putting her own needs ahead those of her husband’s vic­tims. Brown ris­es to meet Hall, embody­ing the self-aggran­dis­ing hyper­mas­cu­line Bap­tist man.

With his chis­eled physique, expen­sive suits, and seduc­tive South­ern drawl, Lee-Cur­tis ped­dles patri­archy, cap­i­tal­ism, and homo­pho­bia dis­guised as spir­i­tu­al guid­ance. As the sto­ry pro­gress­es and the mask begins to slip, Brown does incred­i­ble work por­tray­ing a delu­sion­al preda­tor unable to express the slight­est bit of remorse for his actions. Despite its sub­ject mat­ter, Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul refus­es to preach to us, instead using com­e­dy as a chis­el, slow­ly chip­ping away at Evan­gel­i­cal hypocrisy.