If watching two films featuring the Amish in the space of less than two weeks makes it a Mennonite kick, then hitch up the wagon because I am going to the farm!  While scrolling through Amazon Prime this weekend, I passed up a number of more familiar titles.  My thought was to get to the end of the movies the streaming service suggested for me.  Unlike Netflix, Amazon Prime’s categories go on for a while, and, annoyingly, do not loop back around when you reach the final one.  It was at the last of the selections that I found Plus One at an Amish Wedding (2022).  I will get into what my reasoning is with viewing this kind of material.  It is a good reason, and one I could not get into with Expecting Amish (2014) because of the themes contained therein.  Plus One at an Amish Wedding is not a Lifetime production like the other and therefore has a different agenda.  Indeed, this one was made by a Christian film company, so it is less condemning of tradition.  It is also laughably corny, but that should not stop you from watching it.  Read on to find out why.

Before we get to the literal Plus One at an Amish Wedding, Dr. April Monroe (Galadriel Stineman) meets Dr. Jesse Hardin (Kevin Joy) at a New York City coffee shop.  They get their orders confused when they realize that they have asked for identical bagels and beverages.  So, they fall in love and get happily married.  The end.  Okay, I will keep going.  She works in a busy hospital, and takes too long getting to know each patient.  This is less of a problem when her nephew, Zeke (Preston Kameka), comes in with his dog after the pet had been hit by a car.  Dr. Monroe takes Zeke to the veterinary clinic, and guess who treats Zeke’s dog?  Right.  Dr. Hardin gets Dr. Monroe’s phone number, and six months later they are having dinner with her sister, May (Mary McElree), and her brother-in-law, Rob (Jordan Crusoe).  With everyone gathered, Dr. Hardin has a surprise for his girlfriend: tickets to Paris.  Dr. Monroe is thrilled, but there is something not quite right.  The issue is that he has said little about his background.  It comes out as they are talking one day about their upcoming travels, which suddenly have to be postponed when he receives a letter from Levi (Travis James), his brother.  Like you, she noticed the use of the word “letter.”  Dr. Hardin had been raised Amish, and Levi has asked his brother to come back home for his sibling’s wedding.  Dr. Monroe is surprised by the news, but agrees to go along with him.  Dr. Hardin’s return to the family farm is met with mostly warmth, from Levi and particularly his younger sister, Rachel (Mercedes Marcial).  She is enamored with what the Amish call the English, meaning anything in America that is not Amish, essentially.  And then they meet Esther (Pamela Daly), Dr. Hardin’s mother.  She is not keen on anything from the English world and treats Dr. Monroe coldly, despite the visitor’s best intentions.  Making matters worse is the fact that she invited Naomi (Summer Mastain), the woman that had been arranged for Dr. Hardin to marry before he left the community.  She had remarried, but her husband passed away and it is clear with whom Esther would rather see her estranged son.  It gets to be a little too much for Dr. Monroe on her first night, but Dr. Hardin is able to assuage her fears for another day.  The next one brings preparations for the wedding, some bonding time between Dr. Monroe and Rachel, and more attempts by Dr. Hardin’s girlfriend to ingratiate herself.  It works for the moment when Esther suddenly has to sit down, and Dr. Monroe offers some rudimentary care.  While Esther protests that she has no use for English medicine, it does earn Dr. Monroe permission to wear one of Esther’s dresses at the wedding.  That night, with Levi’s blessing, Dr. Hardin intends to ask Dr. Monroe for her hand in marriage.  Yet, his proposal is cut short by her being distracted by a plane going by. . . ?  Hey, dude, ask again.  At any rate, he waits, which only leads to complications.  Though the wedding goes on without a hitch, at one point Naomi and Dr. Monroe find themselves alone and conversing.  Dr. Hardin’s former intended informs the future intended that he would rather be Amish, and that all Dr. Monroe would be doing is preventing him from being with his family and people.  A few moments later, Naomi is on the ground, writhing in pain with appendicitis.  Being the good physician that she is, Dr. Monroe swiftly diagnoses the problem and manages to have an ambulance come to take Naomi to the hospital.  Dr. Monroe, with Naomi’s words still on her mind, also tells Dr. Hardin that she is leaving.  He, along with Rachel, blame their mother for this turn of events.  To her credit, Esther takes it well.  Her first move is to visit Naomi in the hospital, who tells Esther of the mean-spirited words spoken to Dr. Hardin.  Esther next has a reconciliation with Rachel, who decides to stay in Amish country instead of leaving.  Finally, as Dr. Hardin is about to depart, there is a mending of the fences between mom and son.  She goes a step further, too, traveling with him to New York City so that she can apologize to Dr. Monroe.  Then we get the proposal, finally.  We end with our two doctors married, living back in Amish country, and having offices opened next door to one another.

Please pardon me, but there were a few moments while watching Plus One at an Amish Wedding where I was laughing uproariously.  The acting is often pretty stiff, but this can happen in bigger budget productions.  There is a scene when Rachel is putting on make-up in her room, and it has the feel of her doing drugs behind Esther’s back.  My favorite, though, comes when Levi is showing off his celery patch.  It clearly looks like some production assistant went to the nearest grocery story, bought a few dozen bunches, and then they stuck them in the ground.  These things are silly, and should not derail you from watching such a movie.  What interests me, as I hinted at in the introduction, is the treatment of tradition.  Perhaps it is a poor assumption on my part, but I always assume that Hollywood sees traditional practices as, at best, backwards.  One of the tensions at the heart of the film is the draw of the modern world.  Amish children are given the choice of going on what is called a “Rumspringa.”  This is a period in their young lives when they can live outside of the Amish community and engage with modern ways of living.  Many do not return, and Dr. Hardin is one such example.  The Catholic Church does not close itself off from the world as do the Amish, though we lose people to the world in the same way.  The comparison is apt because both belief systems are seen as backwards, including a Catholic Church that, for example, does not allow female priests.  Young Catholics are consistently bombarded with a culture that tells them that these ideas are either passe or just plain wrong.  What I appreciate about this movie, despite its silliness, is that it does not have the same intent.  Indeed, Dr. Hardin and Dr. Monroe come back at the end and seem to have their feet planted in both worlds.  I wish more Catholics would have a least a toe back at regular Mass attendance.

By the time you read this review of Plus One at an Amish Wedding, it will likely not be on Amazon Prime anymore.  I believe I saw that it was leaving in four days, and I have a few reserve reviews ahead of it.  Yet, if you do manage to stumble upon it somewhere, it gets my stamp of approval.  Despite its cheesiness, it is a pretty cool story.