Note: This is a portion of our review of The Family. For the full review, including a breakdown of content, violence, sex, language and nudity, click here.
The Family is a bigoted limited series from Netflix that centers on “exposing” members of “The Fellowship” (also referred to as “The Family), a Christian organization that seeks to witness Christian values at the highest positions of political power. Those values are, of course, the fruit of the Holy Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness and self-control. The Family is based on a book written by Jeff Sharlet and is stylistically put together with talking-head interviews and actor portrayals of past events from Sharlet’s descriptions.
Each of the five episodes of The Family centers on a different topic involving the Fellowship and their interactions with governments in both the U.S. and abroad. The first episode sets the stage for Sharlet’s direct ties to the Fellowship when he lived in a group home with young Christian men outside of D.C., who are optimistic about rallying in serving others in the name of Jesus.
The next three episodes take a look into the “corruption” of the National Prayer Breakfast and its ripple effects around the globe. They also examine the Fellowship’s shortcomings when it comes to various sins, and how they supposedly treat other powerful leaders in their thirst for political control, allegedly by secretly implementing uplifting faith and family values into government.
td {border: 1px solid #ccc;}br {mso-data-placement:same-cell;}This article originally appeared on Movieguide®. Find out what God’s doing in Hollywood.
