It’s an age-old argument whether or not God exists or not, and people have been debating this for hundreds of years. Various historical figures of the years have either defended or refuted the existence of God over the years. That’s the premise of The Way We Speak. Director Ian Ebright takes a pretty straightforward route with this film. Mostly, he leaves it up to the viewer to decide for themselves whether God exists or not, though.

Simon (Patrick Fabian) is a married man to Claire (Coconubo), who is a doctor. Together, they have a great relationship. She is like an emotional anger to him, but when his best friend passes away suddenly, he starts to wonder why. His wife is also very ill, and he was supposed to debate his friend George (Ricco DeStefano) at a special conference.  Instead, he is replaced by Sarah (Kailey Rhodes), and the topic they must debate is the existence of God or not. With everything Simon is dealing with, this is something he becomes doggedly adamant about. He doubles down on his debate skills and his atheism, which he’s adamant about. It causes a difficult vibe for everybody involved.

If you’re a fan of Better Call Saul, then you know all about Howard, played brilliantly by Patrick Fabian. He has this thing about him where he is very confident in his decisions and how he speaks. Fabian doesn’t do much different with this character in The Way We Speak. His confident nature plays perfectly in the role of Simon. They are like one and the same character in a lot of ways. It was fun to watch him work in another role. Even though he may have been considered a bad guy, I felt he had reasons for acting and thinking the way he did.

The other debater in the age-old argument is played very well by Kailey Rhodes. She had a hard time trying to get around the condescending nature of Fabian’s character.  His confidence frustrates him, and she resorts to some underhanded tactics in the debate series. Rhodes creates an innocence about her, which gets the audience on her side mostly. It feels like the script and director want the audience to take the stance that God exists. It’s an easier role for most people.

Ebright wants to create doubt in the head of the Fabian character after he has had some tragedy in his life. This doubt causes him to go over the edge at the debate. Winning isn’t everything, though, and there are more important things that are going on than winning the prize money for the debate. This story has some tough moments to digest, but I felt it could have gone the extra length. It didn’t go as far as it could have gone from my perspective.

Besides the acting, which is very good by the entire cast, there are some technical things that deserve to be praised by me in this review. Those are the cinematography by AJ Marson and the music that accompanied the film. This is a great-looking film when characters are outside of the debate. The city of Portland has never looked better. That is juxtaposed to the dark theater er that the debate takes place in. The music in the film was surprisingly good. I felt like it completely belonged in this movie.

The Way We Speak is not going to be a film for everybody. The age-old question of whether God exists or not has been debated for hundreds of years. This movie won’t dissuade anybody I’m sure of that. The main decentor in this argument, Fabian’s character, has more on his plate than arguing this. He has friends and family who have gone through a difficult time. This causes him issues during the debate. Ebright creates questions among the characters and the audience watching. I was a little perplexed by this film in some ways. In others I very much enjoyed it. My hope is that others that watch it will enjoy the story more than I did.

3 stars

Dan Skip Allen