Watching Love Note, a 1987 Christian movie for teens that plays like an episode of Highway to Heaven, you see hints of things to come for lead actor Craig Bierko. Craig Johnson, his fast-talking salesman of a high school student, isn’t so different than Harold Hill, the slick Music Man role for which Bierko was Tony-nominated 13 years later. In Love Note, he’s simply peddling a different product than Hill—salvation.
Our introduction to this precocious teen gives us a lot to digest. Standing before his classmates for a speech assignment, he recites a well-oiled (but still squeaky) spiel that sounds like the work of a middle-aged “How do you do, fellow kids?” youth pastor. It kicks off with a knee-slapper of an anti-choice joke:
Craig: Good morning, and welcome to the morning edition of Point of View. My name is Craig Johnson and I’ll be your host for this morning’s controversy. I was gonna talk about abortion, but, uh, homicide seems like a real ugly way to start the day.
[Classmates laugh appreciatively]
Love Note (1987)
From there he tackles the debate over a bill that would require mandatory prayer during school. The classroom buzzes when he argues against it:
Craig: That’s right, you heard me. No! Now, it’s no secret that I’m one of those Christians and I guess this all surprises you a little bit. Some of you have even seen me praying in school. I even pray in this class. Usually right before a test.
[This is met by laughter. As far as his classmates are concerned, Craig’s a regular Shecky Greene.]
See, the way I see it, I already have the right to pray. And being the slightly rebellious kind of guy that I am, I don’t like some government office telling me when and where I can pray. It’s a privilege, and it’s private. I guess it goes back to that whole thing about the separation of church and state. See, a long time ago, people who didn’t necessarily want to pray were forced to, and that’s not right either.
LOVE NOTE (1987)
Oh, that Craig. He’s such a rebel, yet so mature! “I think you’re suffering from a terminal case of puberty,” he tells a friend whose head is turned by Darby Peters (Sally Murphy), a new transfer student. A supercilious hall monitor at heart, Craig is naturally above such pursuits, but he’s not without angst.
“You ever get tired of it? Being a leader?” he asks his pastor. “Being together? Secure? Mature?” He confesses to boredom with his life, which prompts the pastor to laud his popularity and leadership skills. “Yeah, I know, I’m a great kind of guy,” Craig answers. “I just don’t know why I do it sometimes.”
Mulling it over, he continues, “I spend more time trying to make good on everybody else’s expectations of me. And that’s fine. I don’t mind being living proof that all Christians aren’t duds. It’s just that I want more. I feel like I’m treading water, like I’m wasting my time. I want something big to break wide open. I want God to give me an opportunity, and I want it now.”
Unfortunately for Darby, as aloof as Craig is affable, his opportunity for personal and spiritual growth will come at her expense. A hallway wig-snatching alerts him to her secret: Darby’s dying of cancer. “More than anything, I’m afraid of wasting away,” she confides in him.
The idea that her plight, that of an adolescent facing a physically agonizing, imminent death, is complementary to Craig’s childish boredom, is rage-inducing. The screenplay goes there anyway. Craig visits an exhausted Darby, chronically absent from school due to pain, and reads to her from the Bible as she sleeps. “I’m not bored anymore,” he tells his pastor afterward.
When she’s able to leave the house they go on dates that look like vintage Sweet Valley High book covers, even sharing the occasional kiss. Craig is careful to leave room for Jesus when they’re alone together, but he violates boundaries in other ways. Darby’s parents take notice and sit him down for a private talk.
“You’ve been talking to her a lot lately about God and heaven and hell, haven’t you?” they ask. He says he has and her father replies, “Well, that’s what we’re concerned about. I don’t know whether she’s shown it around you or not, but that’s had an effect on her. Her mother and I just don’t want her to have any more worries and concerns than she already has. We just don’t think she ought to be dealing with that sort of thing right now.”
A normal person with appropriate boundaries would apologize profusely, but Craig’s believer status exempts him from worldly concerns. To this couple he barely knows (who are losing their child), Craig has the audacity to snippily raise his voice. “Well, when do you think she should deal with it?” he asks, noting they’ve given her material things, “But the one thing she needs right now, you don’t want her to have.”
I’ll admit I would’ve thrown Craig out of my house at that point like he was Jazz on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Instead, it is Darby who blows up at him in a subsequent scene. “Stop pushing me! Stop preaching to me!” she shouts, but he is persistent. He reminds her that she’s dying, as if she could forget. “This is forever we’re talking about here. Think about how long forever is!”
Craig is every teenage sleaze who won’t take no for an answer, but about religion instead of sex. “I don’t just want to have you as a memory for eternity. When I get to heaven, I want you to show me around. Give Him your life, Darby!” he pleads. She responds as you’d expect: “Give Him my life? He’s taking it! Little by little, every day, Craig.” He continues his sales pitch, which these days might include a complimentary MyPillow if you enter a coupon code at checkout.
In the aftermath of their blowout fight, Darby finds comfort in — you guessed it — the Bible. Her religious conversion happens at breakneck speed, culminating in the performance of an original song, “Shining Through Your Eyes of Love,” at the youth festival Craig organized. Darby’s spiritual awakening, like her illness and death, is mostly about her crusading boyfriend. Her very public testimony causes him to beam and shed invisible tears of happiness. He successfully pressured his girlfriend into putting out for God.
Love Note is a soggy and occasionally tedious infomercial that labors to fill its 65-minute runtime. (Nearly two minutes are allotted to the jazzy opening credits Muzak, and four to Darby’s musical number.) The screenplay, credited to James Cook, is an abomination (the fate of Darby’s dog was particularly maddening). I’m not sure how much say director Steve Grill ultimately had in anything, this being a Ken Anderson production.
The actors occasionally flub their lines and the scenes keep going, but the film is not without its merits. Sally Murphy gamely did what she could with a character who barely exists as anything but an extension of Craig’s ego. And Bierko, his hair nearly as big as his ’80s sweater, was a genuine talent whose knack for playing slightly manic smooth-talkers was apparent even at the start of his career.
Streaming and DVD availability
Love Note is available on DVD. You can also stream it for a small fee on Amazon (via rental or purchase) or stream it for free (with ads) on Tubi.
Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn a small commission from qualifying purchases.
… But wait, there’s more!
Normally this is where I’d mention one of Sally Murphy’s telefilms or Bierko’s early appearance in the Afterschool Special The Day My Kid Went Punk. For Love Note I’m going to do something slightly more serious since I expect to eventually receive an angry email or two about this review. My agnosticism is no secret, and I’ve previously referenced my wife’s upbringing in a fundamentalist Christian sect.
What I’ve not written about is my experience in being proselytized to by tone-deaf jerks. It’s something I encountered frequently as a child, when classmates and even teachers sometimes crossed the line upon learning I was Jewish. Like Craig in Love Note, they sincerely wanted to “save” me. Their behavior was crass and inappropriate.
It’s possible to be a devout Christian without being a jackass about someone else’s religion (or lack thereof). My wife, scarred by the misogyny and homophobia of her parents’ church (she’s hardly alone in that), switched denominations in early adulthood. Her religion is important to her and she’s not a jerk about it. My in-laws, on the other hand, not only hold onto misplaced hope for my miraculous conversion, they also think I’m a failure as a Jew for not knowing how to play mahjong.
Cranky Lesbian is a disgruntled homosexual with too much time on her hands. Click for film reviews or to follow on Instagram.
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