Netflix’s latest original film,Lee Daniels’The Deliverance, continues its reign on the streamer’s top 10 list. The movie follows Ebony (Andra Day), a struggling single mother, whose family falls victim to a harmful, supernatural presence as they move into a new house. Co-starring opposite Day isGlenn Closeas her born-again Christian mother;Demi Singleton,Anthony B. Jenkins,andStranger Things’Caleb McLaughlinas Ebony’s targeted children; Oscar winnerMo’Niqueas a suspicious child services worker on Ebony’s case; andAunjanue Ellis-Tayloras a Reverand who helps Ebony defeat the evil.
WhileThe Deliverancehas its moments, it is largely anincompetent exploration of poverty and intergenerational trauma that forgets about these themeshalfway to focus on faith and its pro-Christianity message. The film follows Ebony and the Jackson family as they struggle with food insecurity, domestic abuse, and financial strife while a demonic entity haunts their basement and causes the children to act out. Though the film frames its finale as triumphant— the alcoholic non-believer Ebony has accepted Jesus as her Lord and Savior and casts the demons from her home —it is anything but.
Even With God On Her Side, Ebony Is Still Screwed
The Deliverancetakes an odd left turn in its final act. While the first act is mainly about thedomestic, mundane horror of living in abject poverty,the film abandons this to focus on themes of faith. Ebony’s struggles with poverty and keeping custody of her kids are not caused by the demonic entities haunting her house. The narrative makes it clear that her financial and emotional issues began long before the family encountered anything supernatural. Thedemons certainly exacerbate her issues, but they aren’t the source. While the film ends on the seemingly happy note of Ebony having defeated her literal (and metaphorical) demons and getting her children back from Child Protective Services,the ending is actually horrifying. God may have delivered her from the supernatural evil of the entities infecting her house, but he hasn’t delivered her from the abject poverty she and her family live in.
The film implies Ebony is in a better mental state having accepted Christ as her savior, but Ebony’sstruggle with alcoholismand the extreme debts she has accrued while trying to support her children will not simply vanish. At one point in the film, a debt collector calls her about owing over $30,000,whichis not an amount of money that will go away with ease (let alone with the power of Christ).Poverty is cyclical and chronic. Even getting back together with her children’s father, as the last moments of the film state she intends to do, will likely not help anything, it just feeds into the anti-divorce rhetoric of the Christian church. Ebony has spent the majority of the film’s runtime expressing her disdain for the man. The peace Ebony is implied to have found with the Lord is, in all likelihood, temporary. Quite frankly, the demons were the least of her worries. The triumphant, joyful way the film frames its ending is narratively incoherent to an audience that’s been shown all of the family’s suffering that will continue long after the credits roll.
God In ‘The Deliverance’ Is Kind of an Asshole
Despite being overwhelmingly pro-Christian, the way the film frames the religion does it no favors. One of the most devout characters in the film is Ebony’s mother, Alberta, who is actively awful to her struggling daughter. When Ebony expresses her frustration at getting calls from bill collectors, Alberta smugly tells her “The Lord don’t put anything you can’t handle"which is decidedly unhelpful.The film also frames Alberta as a good person for being Christian despite the fact that it is implied that she let men molest Ebony as a child (which makes the above quote even worse). And it’s not as though, in finding God, Alberta realized the error of her ways and apologized either. All she does, for most of the film, is make snippy comments and lecture Ebony on joining the church.
Andra Day and Glenn Close’s Discuss ‘The Deliverance’s Paranormal Elements
Andra Day and Glenn Close star as a mother-daughter pair with a complicated relationship in ‘The Deliverance.’
Bernice James, a reverend with a special interest in the Jacksons’ house after supernatural horrors happened there 20 years before, is not much better either. She actively stalks Ebony and confronts her outside a bar. When Ebony confesses she stopped believing in God after she called on him to stop a sexual assault, and he didn’t, Bernice tells her “I think you think that this is transactional. It’s not transactional.” But while that’s an unhelpful and inconsiderate thing to say to a survivor of childhood sexual assault in general,it’s also just straight-up not true within the narrative ofThe Deliverance. The Jackson family is subject to a number of demonic sufferings that don’t stop until Ebony believes in God again. Within the narrative ofThe Deliverance, a relationship with Godistransactional, that transaction is just at the whim of God himself. And while the question of whether or not God should be obligated to ease mundane suffering is perhaps beyond the scope of an entertainment publication, God inThe Deliverancedoesn’t even protect his worshipers from supernatural suffering. Alberta, one of the film’s most devout Christians, still gets possessed by a demon (and forced to say some hilariously nasty things).
Christian Themes Themselves Aren’t The Real Issue
The Deliverancehaving Christian themes is not the issue here, as we’ve seen it done plenty of times in horror films.The Exorcistand its number ofsequels and knock-offsare all arguably pro-Catholic. Manyvampire films, including the iconicBela LugosiDracula,utilize Christian symbols in their heroes' fight against evil.Night of the Hunterdeals withthe hypocrisy of a murderous preacherbut also features a main hero who is staunchly Christian and weaves Bible stories into her fight against him to calm herself and the children in her care. The issue is Lee Daniels' incompetence in artfully crafting a narrative that is pro-Christianity without abandoning the other themes discussed in the film. Ebony finding faith and joining the church could have been an opportunity to turn her life around because of the community and support she’d find there. She is a single mother struggling to raise her kids in poverty. A lot of churches offer childcare services in the form of after-school programs or Sunday schools. Many churches also have food banks. Plenty have, or at least host, programs to aid struggling alcoholics. Even just the relief of community itself could have very well helped Ebony work through some of her emotional issues and trauma.
The Deliverancewants to show Ebony making her way back to religion without having to get into the messy ways in which the church in real life often fails people. While, yes, many churches have a number of programs that would be useful to a struggling single mother, the church as an institution also consistently fails its more vulnerable members. Churches, especially in low-income majority Black neighborhoods like the one Ebony lives in,have chronic issues with gendered abuse. These institutions will oftendrive out or silence victims of domestic or sexual assaultwhile rehabilitating the reputations of perpetrators. Survivors will often find themselves in the position of being obligated to forgive their abusers, or else risk losing their community.
Many of these institutions can also be economically exploitative. Tithing plates are passed around by people who are themselves often struggling, yet feel compelled to give. All the while,that money does not always make its way back to the community. To acknowledge the power of faith through the ways it inspires church members to help their communities also means delving into the ways that those same communities can fail one another. Other Christian films, like the aforementionedNight of the Hunter,manage this. It’s very telling that, despite having very pro-Christian and pro-church themes,The Deliverancefails to show the power of the church in its entirety. The audience only sees a brief snippet of a service, and only meets a single pastor. Ebony is saved, but only in an abstract, immaterial sense. She’s still tens of thousands of dollars in debt and will likely continue to struggle with her alcoholism until she seeks outside help.
The fact of the matter is,The Deliverancehad the potential to beboth well-craftedandChristian. The presence of Christianity, or any other religion, does not hinder a film’s ability to artfully tell a story. Like the demons exacerbate, but don’t cause, the domestic issues present in the Jackson family, the narrative issues ofThe Deliveranceare exacerbated, not caused, by its sudden left-turn into Christianity.This is a failure, first and foremost, in storytelling. The film is not meant to convince outside viewers of anything, but to reaffirm the pre-existing beliefs of people who already have a strong connection to God and the church. In the end, Ebony is no closer to solving her issues than she was at the start of the film, despite what the film and its pro-Christian rhetoric want you to think.
The Deliverance
The Deliveranceis currently available to stream on Netflix in the U.S.
