Every Sunday morning, I wake up, get dressed and proceed to church. I’m the pastor’s daughter. Gospel music has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember, and the values learned in church have influenced my life and have helped me face many challenging obstacles. I was reminded of all of this while watching the movie, “The Fighting Temptations.” The movie was refreshing and ultimately a long awaited family movie,Cuba Gooding, Jr. and Beyonce Knowles come together in this sensational movie. Gooding stars as Darrin Hill, a junior executive at a New York City advertising firm. As a child Darrin moves from location to location his entire life after his mother, played by Faith Evans, and is kicked out of the church choir because she sings secular music, which is considered “a sin.” Darrin and his mom leave Georgia, leaving behind their only living relative, Aunt Sally. Years later, upon the death of his aunt, Darrin returns to Georgia to collect his much needed inheritance.
When he returns to his hometown in Georgia he meets Lilly, played by Knowles. Lilly is beautiful and has a singing voice straight from heaven, and quickly she and Darrin fall in love. However, with love comes tribulations that challenge the two characters. To find out the ending of the movie, you have to go and rent it!
For those of you who aren’t avid Beyonce fans, this movie could possibly change your perception of the lead singer of Destiny’s Child gone solo artist. The role fits the singer/actress to a tee and captures her in a new light that engulfs the stellar quality of her talents. Gooding praised Knowles in an interview saying, “She is very beautiful and professional and possesses great talents that should not be overlooked.”
In one scene of the movie, Lilly kisses Darrin and whispers, “Fighting temptation makes you stronger.” Although many people can interpret this quote in several ways in context to the movie and life, I think that there is a message within the combination of those five words that can be directed to our campus. As college students, we sometimes look for the easy way out of tough situations, but the situations we face the ones that make us lose sleep and drain the emotion out of us are usually the same situations that mold us as individuals and develop us into people of character.
Darrin’s mother told him, “Never settle for anything less than the best, then you never have to worry about people looking down on you.”
This movie warmed my heart and is definitely worth watching.
Movie: A
DVD: B-