While watching Expecting Amish (2014), I developed the distinct feeling that I was watching a Lifetime movie.  As it turned out, I was right.  There is nothing wrong with this variety.  If you will pardon the borrowed cliché, a movie is a movie.  There were certain telltale signs that led me to this belief.  Lifetime is well-known for being a television station dedicated to female programming.  Again, totally fine, but when you are dealing with the main character, Hannah Yoder (AJ Michalka) being a woman, it would not be surprising to find it on this network.  Another indicator, more subtle and of a different nature, were the random fades to black.  Made for television films have that for commercial breaks.  The rest is a matter of putting two-and-two together.  None of this, though, is why I chose it.  After a lengthy search, one I feel apropos of the title, I came across today’s entry.  I kind of had an idea of what it would be about, and as somebody fighting a lonely war against the worst parts of American culture, I thought it would provide some good material about which for me to write.  It did not disappoint.

The premise of Expecting Amish, as I read in the Amazon Prime blurb, relates to young members of their community going on what they call “Rumspringa.”  If you know anything about the Amish, or think you do, then you can understand why they would have this practice of allowing their youth, for a discreet period of time, freedoms not typically granted.  Thus, it makes sense that the first words spoken in the film are from 1 Corinthians 13:11, “When I was a child, I used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I put aside childish things.”  For this group of Pennsylvania Dutch, this means being baptized into their church and promptly getting married.  Hannah is on hand to witness this event, standing next to her intended fiancé, Samual (Jean-Luc Bilodeau).  He expects them to be the next to do the same thing.  Yet, the next day one of her friends, Mary (Alyson Stoner), brings news that her and two other community members have been granted permission to have their Rumspringa in Los Angeles.  Hannah’s sister thinks this would be a wonderful adventure, and Hannah is inclined to agree.  However, her father (Brian Krause) has increasingly relied on her to maintain the household since her mother passed away.  There is also Samual to consider, who cannot understand why anyone would want to leave their community.  Nonetheless, she makes the decision to go, and reluctantly Mr. Yoder and Samual give their blessings.  Hannah joins the other three, but is the last to shed her traditional garments for modern fashion.  The others also start going out and experiencing American culture immediately, whereas she waits at the home they have rented during their stay for phone calls from Samual.  In case you are wondering, he uses the payphone in the nearby town.  Eventually, though, they convince her to go to a party being thrown by a college guy Mary met.  Timidly, she walks into the soiree, and is promptly abandoned by her friends.  After a few moments of awkwardly looking around, she decides to go home.  However, as she is leaving, she trips over the disc jockey’s (DJ) equipment, putting an abrupt stop to the music.  This is how she meets Josh (Jesse McCartney).  He is the DJ, and brushes aside her shy but effusive apologies for the damaged machines.  This leads to a conversation revealing that this is her first party, and that she has never used a computer.  Basically, he learns that she is Amish.  Intrigued, he spends the rest of the night talking to her.  When he offers to show her around town, she makes it clear that it can only be as friends.  He agrees, but they come to spend an increasing amount of time with each other to the surprise of her companions, and the disappointment of Mr. Yoder and Samual.  Eventually, it gets down to the last week before Hannah is supposed to return to Pennsylvania, and she decides she must cut herself off from Josh.  He does not take this well, and when they find each other on the beach, she admits that she does not want to go back to her old life.  He also says that he likes her, and they end up having sex.  Sigh.  Nonetheless, she decides that she must tell her family and Samual personally that she is giving up being Amish.  When she is finally face-to-face with them, she finds that it is not as easy as she hoped.  A month goes by, and Hannah is getting increasingly frantic messages from Josh on the cell phone he gave her.  This is not the worst of her concerns.  Remember that sigh I wrote a few sentences ago?  That is because she is pregnant.  The first person she tells is Samual, who confronts her because of notions of infidelity suggested by Mary.  Samual is not pleased, but seeing her stress he offers to raise the child as his own and as Amish.  Hannah must now tell Josh that she is not going to live with him in Los Angeles, and that she is having his baby.  Before the baptism and wedding can take place, though, Josh drives across the country to try to get Hannah to reconsider.  His arrival is not welcome and he is asked to leave.  Yet, the next day, on the eve of the nuptials, Hannah finally decides to depart.  She comes out of the house dressed in modern clothes and with a suitcase.  Though Mr. Yoder officially shuns her from the community, the last scene is of him receiving a letter from his daughter with a picture of his granddaughter.

This is not something particular to Lifetime movies, but the course of events in Expecting Amish is predictable.  I say this not because it has a common plot arc, though it does, but because I understand, to a degree, Hollywood’s lack of comprehension over why anyone would willingly choose an Amish lifestyle.  To the film’s credit, it not as condemnatory as I expected.  Yes, it makes a point of highlighting the restrictiveness of Amish customs.  At the same time, I would not say they are portrayed as abusive.  This is significant because unless a given community shares the same values and views in regards to women these days as the broader culture, it is considered regressive.  Catholicism is not considered an “in” religion because of these very reasons, even if, by comparison, women are much more “liberated” in the Church than among the Amish.  I put “liberated” in quotation marks because, as alluded to before, this is a relative term.  Women had, and continue to have, a prominent role in Catholicism.  In the simplest of terms, the second most important person in the Faith is Mary, the Mother of God.  We do not worship her, but she is Universally venerated by Catholics all over the world.  I cannot think of a protestant equivalent, though I would be happy to be proven wrong.  Despite my obvious preference for my own Faith, I wanted Hannah to remain with the Amish.  Maintaining traditions is important, no matter what modern culture will tell you.

Though Expecting Amish did not turn out exactly as I hoped, it did do one thing that warmed this Catholic heart.  Hannah chose to keep the baby.  In fact, through Samual’s words, it refers to the potential for an abortion as something horrible.  I agree wholeheartedly.  Hannah may have asked God why He did this to her, which is foolhardy because she did it to herself, but at least it did not become something worse.  As such, if you can find this one, I give it a cautious recommendation.