Every now and then, a movie that combines heart and brains comes along, capturing the essence of the era. For MAGA conservatives, that film this year is guaranteed to be Potluck Teacher. It’s a bit reminiscent of God’s Not Dead, but goes beyond religion and delves into MAGA themes that most faith-based films do not expand into.
Potluck Teacher is a brilliant and powerful faith-based drama that explores how Gen Z young people are navigating a harrowing landscape of destroyed families, schools hostile to religious faith, and a culture that celebrates sin and antisocial behavior. The plot centers on Harrison Jones, a clerk at a sports card store. Two high school students come to the store and strike up a conversation.
Jones impresses them sufficiently that when a lazy, jaded teacher encourages her students to find an interesting local person to speak to her class (from which she excuses herself to waste the hour in the teacher’s lounge gossiping), they return to the store and ask Jones if he’d like to come and speak. Not knowing Jones’ background, they unsuspectedly spark a series of events that end up changing their lives and those of their classmates.
After praying for guidance before arriving at school, Jones reflects as the students tear into each other and the adults and society that have failed them. The students open up with emotional geysers pent up from years of anger and depression. The class, though, Mike, talks of being abused by his father, who then took up with another “stupid woman” who didn’t care about her own kids but just wanted “a man in the house.” Another student, Hailey, shares her experience of confronting “the darkness” that torments her and encourages her to hate herself.
Meanwhile, in the teachers’ breakroom, their cynical teacher boasts to another teacher about how she doesn’t pay any attention to the students’ issues, except to demand that they complete their work.
After fending off taunts of “teacher’s pet” from other students, the class nerd says he recently happened upon a re-run of a cheesy old family sitcom, The Brady Bunch — and wonders why children are now left to “raise themselves.”
Secular-minded fellow students challenge the class Christian, Hannah, for her beliefs. She defends her faith, saying they’ve been raised in a society that denies the truth: “We’ve grown up in a junkyard.” Hannah points out how many fellow students are suffering depression before exclaiming, “They need God in their lives, and I can’t even talk about Him!”
One of the more moving scenes involves Maya, a young black female student. She talks of being preyed upon by young men who exploit her for the anything-goes jungle of the sexually “liberated” internet.
Potluck Teacher also touches on cancel culture (I won’t spoil the ending, but it’s a shocker that makes the movie). Michael Davis plays the role of Jones and is so compelling that you wish he were your mentor and taught every high school class. He’s just one of those rare finds in a teacher.
At one point, Jones explains to the students that the Bible verse “Judge not, lest ye be judged” doesn’t mean we’re not allowed to judge; otherwise, there would be no right or wrong, no laws to enforce. Instead, he explains that it means don’t judge people for things you are guilty of. He brings the students out of their closed-off selves, getting the quiet, withdrawn ones to engage in discussions, and even convinces a truant student in the parking lot to return to the classroom and participate.
He helps the students understand how each one is different, facing different struggles, and talks them through their criticisms of each other so they see each other in a different lens.
Potluck Teacher is the first film to share in brutal honesty how the collapse of faith, family and culture has devastated our youth and caused a surge in teen depression. The highly entertaining drama achieves this in a style reminiscent of The Breakfast Club, where a group of high school students candidly confront each other about their struggles. The film is distributed by one of the world’s top faith-based film distributors.
Potluck Teacher is the third and latest film from Andrew Thomas. His first effort was a documentary on canceled Christians that won awards and honors from Christian film festivals across the country. Three years ago, Thomas founded Summerbrook Studios and released his first feature film, Lake Lavon. It tells of a young couple who find faith as they find each other. Lake Lavon was the number one film on the Christian Channel and has been widely streamed around the world. Like Potluck Teacher, Lake Lavon centers on our youth, where the cultural battles of tomorrow are being fought today (Thomas and his wife have four children).
Now, with Potluck Teacher, Thomas has cemented his status as a rising star among conservative and faith-based filmmakers.
There’s a real need for original and engrossing entertainment geared towards conservatives and Christians, whom major filmmakers all but ignore. MAGA conservatives and Christians have long decried the lack of original dramas and movies that speak to them. This is mainly because the left dominates Hollywood and the arts, and has for decades.
While there has been a surge of faith-based films in recent years, few delve into the political aspects as well, often leaving only documentaries that younger generations are less likely to watch. Thomas’s works are helping to fill this gap. They rise above the trite and predictable fare that we see all too often in this genre, to the extent we see any films at all. He’s certainly doing his part to help make a conservative Hollywood a reality.
Potluck Teacher is streaming on Amazon Prime, YouTube, Tubi, and elsewhere. If you miss it, you’re missing something special. All high school and college students especially need to watch this powerful movie.