Heart of the Beholder

Ken Tipton's autobiographical drama follows the plight of Mike and Diane Howard (engagingly played by Matt Letscher and Sarah Brown), who open the first videocassette rental store in St. Louis in 1980. As the decade progresses, their single store success expands into a chain, but the business comes crashing down when a Christian fundamentalist group starts demanding that the Howards remove allegedly objectionable films, including Splash (due to bestiality—the fundamentalists humorlessly express disgust that Tom Hanks “has sex with a fish”). When the Howards wind up being the only rental outlet to offer Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ, they face angry demonstrations and threats of violence against their family, after which the local district attorney prosecutes the pair on obscenity charges, a costly lawsuit that imperils the Howards' business. In adapting his life story, Tipton manages to create a balanced work that is mercifully free of melodrama and richly etched with raw human emotion, and while his direction never quite hides the film's obvious low budget, his compelling depiction of cruel injustice in the guise of self-righteousness will resonate with those who genuinely believe in fairness. Highly recommended. (P. Hall)