Overview
Redeeming Love is a 2022 American Christian Western romance film directed by D.J. Caruso, who co-wrote the screenplay with Francine Rivers. The film is based on Rivers' 1991 novel of the same name, which was based on the Biblical story of Hosea, and is set in the American Old West during the California Gold Rush. It stars Abigail Cowen, Tom Lewis and Logan Marshall-Green.
The film was co-produced by Pinnacle Peak Pictures, Mission Pictures International, and Nthibah Pictures, and was filmed in Cape Town, South Africa. It was theatrically released by Universal Pictures on January 21, 2022, and received generally negative reviews from critics, though it was received better by audiences. Redeeming Love was nominated for the GMA Dove Award for Inspirational Film/Series of the Year at the 2022 GMA Dove Awards.
Plot
During the California Gold Rush, a beautiful young woman called Angel works as a prostitute in the fictional town of Pair-a-Dice. Despite being the object of desire for the local men, she survives through hatred and self-loathing. Meanwhile, a visiting farmer named Michael Hosea prays for God to send him a wife. Later that day, he sees Angel walking through town and falls in love at first sight.
Flashbacks reveal that Angel's real name is Sarah and that she knows only abuse from men. As a child, she overhears her father, Alex Stafford, saying that she should never have been born. Sarah learns that her father is married and her mother, Mae, is his mistress. Alex eventually cuts off support for Mae, obliging her to become a prostitute and eventually become sick and die. Distraught, Sarah rejects her mother's Catholic faith. Afterward, Mae's pimp sells an 8-year-old Sarah to a man named Duke, who renames her "Angel" and forces her into prostitution. One night, when Angel is a teenager, one of her customers is her father, and she knowingly has sex with him to punish him for how he treated her mother. He does not recognize her, but when he finds out the next morning, he commits suicide. This prompts Angel to escape from Duke. She arrives in California with hopes of beginning a new life but, penniless, once again becomes a prostitute at a brothel there.
From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).