Mill Creek Entertainment Sets Dec. 12 As The DVD Debut Date For Director Shari Rigby's Dove-Approved Divine Influencer

If you have watched movies for any length of time, you come to realize that it is all about the story.   Sure, there can be terrific special effects that dazzle and delight, but in the end all of that is just so much cotton candy that is enjoyed and quickly forgotten if there is no story to go along with the noise.

Hollywood these days thinks that noise is good.   That’s sad.

When you get into the faith-based world of filmmaking the same thing holds true.   Without a story, it’s just so much preaching.   Preaching equals noise, and that’s bad.

News arrived this past week that Mill Creek Entertainment has assigned Dec. 12 as the street date for the DVD debut of director Shari Rigby’s Dove-Approved Divine Influencer.

For some, “faith-based” and “Dove-Approved” are non-starters.   Fine, if that’s the case, then you miss out on a terrific performance by Lara Silva (as Eden in The Chosen television series … Making Him Famous, Blue Ridge) as Olivia Golden, a thoroughly shallow and self-centered “social influencer” with something like 300,000 followers.

She’s “Shallow Hal” and “Mean Girls” all rolled into one despicable package.   That’s the key to it.   It’s why Rigby’s Divine Influencer works, not just as a faith-based production, but as a well told story overall.

The first 20 minutes or so of Divine Influencer can be a rough slog.   Lara Silva is so good at selling Olivia, her character, as a pretentious, rude, shallow, narcissistic individual that you just want to check out.   Her materialistic hedonism is beyond the pale … why waste you time watching a self-centered twit prattle on about the latest accessory she has just acquired.

That’s the set-up and you have to let Silva set the groundwork for what is to follow.   She nails it!!

Everything comes crashing down — we won’t get into all the details, that’s for the viewer discover.   Let’s just say it is a series of events that takes Oliva (Liv) from one disaster (career-wise, life-wise) to the next.   She loses her gig, her parents finally say no and even her “bestie,” Kimberly (Sarah Stipe), shuns her when she neglects Stanley (a surprise).

She ends up at the Harvest Rescue Mission, which is run by Ryan (Jason Burkey — They Cloned Tyrone, It’s Christmas Again, Stars Fell on Alabama), a former high school classmate that she had no time for way back then — she was well-off, his mother worked in the cafeteria to make ends meet.   

He doesn’t judge, he opens the place to her, at first as just a place to stay, but she comes around and starts helping out.   But more importantly, the time spent there opens her eyes to the world around her … to faith, to kindness and her heart to a life that was actually passing her by.   Even the shallow can have a second chance.

Mark it down, Dec. 12, on DVD from Mill Creek Entertainment director Shari Rigby’s Divine Influencer, starring Lara Silva … a wonderful story, well told.