Beverly Lewis' the Shunning

Movie / Show Details

Amazon.com

Author Beverly Lewis has made a lucrative career out of writing immersive novels about love and life in Amish country, near where she grew up in Pennsylvania. The Shunning, a TV film adaptation of one of Lewis’s bestsellers, is a lovely, and loving, look at a different way of life–and how love and loyalty can tear at one’s heart no matter where she lives, or comes from. Danielle Panabaker is dewy-cheeked and earnest as Katie, and recalls the young Kelly McGillis, who also played a young Amish woman in Witness. Young Katie, a devout Amish woman of 20, has always felt pulled in different directions despite her immersion in her small town’s insular ways. She secretly sings “English” (non-Amish) songs and hides her beloved, and forbidden, guitar from her strict but loving parents. As The Shunning opens, Katie is set to wed the most eligible bachelor in her community–the new bishop. Yet Katie’s heart hasn’t gotten over her first love, Daniel (the adorable David Topp, seen in flashbacks). Daniel is presumed to have drowned three years earlier, yet his body was never found, which tugs at Katie’s heart. If Daniel could still be alive, how can she truly give her heart to another? Then a real curveball lands in the small community. Sherry Stringfield (ER) plays Laura, a big-city woman on a mission to clear up some long-buried details from her own past. And to say that she’s not welcome in the tight-knit Amish community is an understatement. Yet her news is tied with Katie’s family and fate–and lives are upturned even as everyone fights desperately to do the right thing. The Shunning refers to the ultimate punishment among the Amish–someone who’s committed an offense against the community may not be spoken to or looked at until true repentance is achieved. It’s not revealing too much to say that it’s Katie who becomes the target of this punishment. But the threads of drama surrounding the crisis–expertly directed by Michael Landon Jr.–keep the viewer, and most of the townspeople, guessing about the “whole story.” The Shunning is a drama about people, connections, love, and loss, and it’s told with respect and heart. Anyone who enjoys a good romantic drama, with a strong, yet vulnerable, heroine, should embrace The Shunning. –A.T. Hurley

Product Description

On the eve of her Amish wedding, Kate discovers some startling news from her parents that will forever change all she has ever known and bring hope to what the distant future will hold.