Clay Walsh, a former frat boy, and Amber Hewson, a free-spirited young woman together together, attempt the impossible: an 'old-fashioned' and God-honoring courtship in contemporary America.
Disturbing is the film's apparent conviction that the surefire way to a woman's heart involves lots of candles and a mani-pedi, the sort of notion that isn't so much cute and old-fashioned as it is acutely offensive.
This low-budget, faith-based film -- with a cast of mostly unknowns -- is little more than a made-for-cable movie. But it offers an endearing look at what it's like to fall in love -- not lust.
It's incredibly rare to see an American movie with a Christian perspective that's more invested in philosophizing and empathizing than in eschatological pandering, and for that alone "Old Fashioned" deserves commendation.
OLD FASHIONED has a great deal of trouble turning its not-very-dynamic concept -- not dating -- into a watchable movie. But it also has trouble arguing its own point.
The movie is self-conscious about its more on-the-nose aspects, which doesn't help much. It's also self-conscious about the weirdness of the world it espouses, which does.
It must be pretty neat to make a movie that mostly consists of people telling you how chivalrous and morally right you are and how much everybody loves you, but that's no excuse for making it this boring.
Old Fashioned feels like a familiar work of juvenilia, something similar to those terribly insightful relationship dramas your college roommate wrote on lonely nights.
