Redeeming Love | 2022 | PG-13 | – 6.7.3

Why is “Redeeming Love” rated PG-13? The MPAA rating has been assigned for “mature thematic content, sexual content, partial nudity, and strong violent content.” The Kids-In-Mind.com evaluation includes several scenes of young girls being groomed for prostitution, a few off-screen implied rape scenes, many sex scenes and implied sex scenes with most taking place in brothels and including partial nudity, an abortion and implied sterilization, the death of a parent, several beatings, a hanging, a couple of fires with one leading to two deaths, several arguments and some moderate language. Read our parents’ guide below for details on sexual content, violence & strong language.

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Based on the novel “Redeeming Love” by Francine Rivers: Set in the 1850s, a young girl (Livi Birch and later Abigail Cowen) finds herself sold to a man that grooms her into his stable of prostitutes after her mother dies. Convinced that she is neither worthy of love, nor wanting it, she does her job until a young man tries to change her mind. Also with Tom Lewis, Famke Janssen, Logan Marshall-Green, Nina Dobrev, Eric Dane and Brandon Auret. Directed by D.J. Caruso. [Running Time: 2:14]

Redeeming Love SEX/NUDITY 6

 – A young man and a young woman kiss, he lifts her skirt, she moans and he takes off his pants (we see her bare thighs) and he thrusts; they then take off their clothes and lie on a bed kissing as he thrusts and they moan (his hand covers her breast and we see cleavage, bare shoulders and abdomen and his bare chest abdomen and back). A young woman takes a man to her room in a brothel where they have sex (we do not see anything) and he becomes aware that she is his daughter (please see the Violence/Gore category for more details). A young man and a young woman kiss, and she unfastens his belt and unbuttons her blouse (we see cleavage and her corset), and they thrust and kiss.
► A man tells a young woman, “You owe me for the ride,” and she unties her hair and removes her shawl, stands over him and he takes her by the hand behind a boulder where he emerges pulling up and fastening his pants as we hear the young woman gagging, coughing and spitting (we see some goo). A man touches a young woman’s hand and offers her work in his saloon, and he touches her hand and says, “As long as I get what I want when I want it and it’s free”; we then see the man adjusting his pants and clothes after leaving an upstairs room (sex is implied). A man kisses a woman on the cheek.
► A man takes off his jacket and unfastens his pants while threatening a young woman and she laughs at him (please see the Violence/Gore category for more details). A shirtless young man (we see his bare chest and abdomen) and a young woman wrapped in sheets lie next to each other and she tries to seduce him; he leaves the house and is seen swimming in a cold pond. A young man and a young woman kiss and she starts to undress him, but he stops her. A young woman asks a young man to help her brush her hair, he sits behind her and she reaches into his lap and tells him, “It’s time to pay you back,” and he refuses.
► We understand that a young woman became pregnant and a man performed an abortion and it is implied that he also sterilized her; she screams and pleads as a man puts her on a table (we see medical instruments). A young girl gets out of a bed as a man enters the room with a young woman (please see the Violence/Gore category for more details) and tells the young girl to prepare a bath (we understand that the man has two young girls in his rooms that he is grooming for prostitution). A young girl sits in a reception room of a brothel and watches as men enter and take women to other rooms; she is wearing a corset and undergarments like the women. A man asks a young girl to sit on his lap and she does so reluctantly.
► A topless young woman stands looking in a mirror (we see her bare back and her long hair covers most of her bare breasts, though we see cleavage and part of the side of her breasts) as a man enters the room and she asks, “What’s your pleasure?” as she tries to seduce him (no sex occurs); he then proposes to her. A topless young woman scrubs herself (please see the Violence/Gore category for more details) and we see cleavage, a bit of the side of her breasts, her bare back and abdomen (her arms cover her breasts). A topless young woman is seen and her arms cover her bare breasts (we see her bare abdomen). A young woman lies on a bed with a robe wrapped around her and we see her bare thighs above her stocking tops. A young woman begins unbuttoning her corset with a shirtless man in the room as another man bursts in (please see the Violence/Gore category for more details). A young woman wearing a corset (we see bare shoulders and cleavage) stands looking out the window as a man in the room with her pulls up his pants (we see his bare legs). A woman doesn’t have enough money for a purchase in a shop and a man tells her that there is another way as he reaches out to touch her hand; we then see her standing in the doorway of a shack (she is wearing a corset and undergarments that reveal cleavage) where a man leaves and others stand waiting outside (implying prostitution). Several women wearing corsets and skirts dance on a stage and flip their skirts up to show undergarments (like a Can-Can dance) while men in an audience cheer.
► A young woman tells another young woman to take a young man off her hands when he comes to a brothel looking for her. Three women talk about selling themselves to men on a ship sailing to California (we don’t see any sex). A man prays for a companion and refers to her having long legs.
► Men line up with numbers outside a brothel and a number is drawn from a hat for who will spend time with a prostitute. A woman announces that a popular prostitute is worn out and men standing in line moan and are disappointed. We understand that a woman had a child out of wedlock and that the child’s father is married to another woman. A young woman walks through a town with a bodyguard and men ogle her. A young woman stands in a window in a brothel and watches as men line up outside.

Redeeming Love VIOLENCE/GORE 7

 – A man punches another man in the face, wraps a garrote around his throat and strangles him; another man forces a young girl to watch, telling her not to make a sound and he pours brandy on the victim’s face and stabs him with a sword (we hear a crunch with no blood). A man is distraught after finding out that he has just had sex with his daughter in a brothel (please see the Sex/Nudity category for more details) and holds a gun to his head (we hear a shot off-screen and understand that he has taken his own life). A woman tells an audience in a dance hall that a man is holding children in his rooms and the audience jeers; the accused man grabs the woman by the arm and pushes her off-stage, another man follows them and punches the man in the face, steps on his hand (we hear a crunch), the woman hits the accused man in the face with a fireplace poker (we see some blood) and takes two young girls away with her while many men chase the accused man into an alley and we later see him dead and hanging by a rope.
► A woman lies dead in a road after being murdered. Two women attack a young woman, punch her and steal her money leaving her unconscious and with a bloody face. A young man punches a man in the face and we see his bloody nose. A young woman begins unbuttoning her corset with a shirtless man in the room, as another man bursts in and punches him in the face, and takes the young woman out through a saloon where three other men approach to stop them; the young man punches and kicks each of them and the two ride away on a horse-drawn cart.
► A man takes off his jacket and unfastens his pants while threatening a young woman and she laughs at him; he beats her (we hear punches and thuds off-screen) and we see her with a very bloody, bruised and swollen face. A man pushes his way into a room, he yells at a young woman and tells her he knows she is hiding something; he throws her into a tub of water and holds her under as she struggles. A young woman asks a woman for the money she owes her and the woman declines; they argue and the woman holds her around the throat. A young girl gets out of a bed as a man enters the room with a young woman and tells the child to prepare a bath; we hear two children yelling from a neighboring room and calling out “No,” and, “Please stop” (we understand that the man has two young girls in his rooms that he is grooming for prostitution). A man yells at and beats a woman off-screen (we hear punches land and see her with a bruised face later). A woman slaps a young woman in the face. A woman walks along a dirt road and through woods, she slips into a stream and limps along the road; a man rides a horse behind her and she slaps him in the face when he stops to try to convince her to go back with him.
► A woman coughs and gags and we see her in a bed feverish as her young daughter tries to feed her; the woman breathes her last breath and the child cries and pleads with her to wake up. A young woman scrubs herself with rocks until she is bleeding until a young man finds her and takes her away. Two men threaten a young woman and take her to a saloon where they force her to perform on a stage and presumably be a prostitute. A young man threatens to kill a man with his bare hands. A young woman has a nightmare that a man finds her, enters her house and stands over her threatening her (she wakes up screaming and thrashing). A man tells a young woman that he knows her and when he sees her wearing his dead wife’s clothing it makes him sick to his stomach and that he wants to tear them off her; she mocks him and he pours a cup of coffee on a table in front of her.
► A restaurant is shown in flames as people outside pass buckets of water trying to douse the fire. A young woman stands outside a burned out building and we hear that it burned down killing two women trapped inside; also that the man responsible for starting the fire was hanged. A man complains to a woman that he gave her money for an abortion but that she did not go through with it. A man orders a woman (she’s his mistress) to leave the house she is living in. A woman pleads with a man to take a young girl away from the man he is delivering her to. A young woman talks about marriage being a slave fantasy. A young woman tells a dog to go home and throws a stick for him to chase. A young woman tries to chop wood and the axe is stuck in the wood. A man stumbles along a road and seems to be inebriated or sick. A young woman tries to get out of bed and collapses. A young man talks about his father being a plantation owner that held slaves and that he beat him bloody for disobeying him; he says that his father threw him into the slaves’ quarters and told him to stay with the animals.
► A young girl asks her mother, “If I got sick and died, would he come back to you?” A woman says that her mother beat her with a switch and made her cut a new on every day (we see scars on her back). A young woman opens her door and when she sees a young man she says, “You again.” A woman complains about milk being rationed and that another woman is drinking more than she is allowed to. A woman says that her father sold her for 3 ounces of gold and told her that she would be going to a palace. A woman says, “Men want to use you.” A young man says that his sister died. A young woman says, “I chose to die.”
► A man prepares a basin of water, takes a woman’s boots and stockings off and bathes her feet; we see she has blisters and bloody scabs on her feet. People frantically sift through water from a stream searching for gold and a man hollers when he finds a small chunk. A young man teaches a young woman how to gather eggs from chickens; one chicken flutters out of the coup toward the young woman and she falls down. A young man teaches a young woman how to pluck chickens to prepare them to cook. A young woman gets excited when she hooks a fish, until the line breaks.

Redeeming Love LANGUAGE 3

 – 1 sexual reference, 1 scatological term, 6 mild obscenities, name-calling (ungrateful, mess, pig, dirt farmer, lapdog, highest priced whore, piece of trash, Chinese flower, hopeless, broken, scoundrel, scorned woman, liar, jealous, demons), exclamations (by gosh or by golly, shoo, git, go home), 7 religious exclamations (e.g. God’s love, my God, Jesus, you’d run like the Devil, thank God, Godspeed, a man sings about Moses and a burning bush, a young man prays in gratitude for his land and asks for a companion). | profanity glossary |

Redeeming Love SUBSTANCE USE

 – Three young women drink liquor in a parlor and in their rooms in several scenes, a man drinks from a flask, a man pours a whiskey for a young woman, and a man drinks brandy in a man’s room. A man smokes a pipe, a man chews tobacco and spits in a few scenes, a man smokes a cigarette, and a man pulls chewing tobacco out of his mouth.

Redeeming Love DISCUSSION TOPICS

 – The Gold Rush, prostitution, incest, grooming, love, rape, abortion, judging people, betrayal, forgiveness, infidelity, debt, obedience, ambition, hope, sense of honor, vanity, suicide.

Redeeming Love MESSAGE

 – Forgiving yourself is the first step toward healing.