In-Lawfully Yours is a 2016 faith-based—or Christian—picture which for a long time resembles a good Frank Capra comedy.

Divorcing her husband after he two-times her, Jesse soon falls for a small-town minister who is solemnly told that Jesse is a bad influence on him.  (Chelsey Crisp and Philip Boyd are droll and pleasant as Jesse and hubby.)  The filmmakers do not believe this, albeit, well, it’s true that Jesse has never converted to the Faith.  But she’s learning.

The Capraesque delight fails to last.  I don’t care about a few comedic cliches, or some intermittent oddity, but, once again in a faith-based movie, there is conversion  propaganda.  It is allied with hey-God-is-on-your-side theology, and this theology will save your soul.  All in all, the film becomes rather silly, in more ways than one.  Jesse, for example, says it’s okay that Ben, her minister-lover, recently engaged in an angry food fight.  But it wasn’t just a food fight.  Ben struck Jesse’s ex-husband with his fist.  I am more impressed by the cast of In-Lawfully Yours than by its Christianity.  I must consider the pic a mere bauble.