“And then there are those who say nothing at all. Because they don’t have to.”

Mr. Church is one of those smooth-edged, formulaic tearjerkers that have very little meat on the bones. The kind that I typically do not care for even if they’re mildly effective at momentarily tugging on the old heartstrings with their telegraphed and clichéd brushes with tragedy. Sure, it’s a cut above the standard Hallmark product, but it still revels in the same brand of schmaltziness and severely diminishes its stellar performances with extremely pervasive narration.

It tells the true story of an unlikely friendship that develops when a woman dying of breast cancer is unexpectedly blessed with the services of a talented cook to see her through her final days. But the six month arrangement turns into six years as she continually defies the odds while growing ever more frail and dependent. And of course the humble cook cannot simply abandon his charge, seeing her through to the bitter end. During that time, a strong bond develops between the dying woman’s daughter and the cook, a friendship that solidifies through several further trying episodes and ultimately fulfills the familial needs of each as she grows into adulthood and has a child of her own. It’s a touching film, made with great economy but little vision by Bruce Beresford, who finds himself mining territory that will be immediately familiar to those who’ve seen his Oscar-winning Driving Miss Daisy.

The territory I refer to is, of course, heartwarming race relations. Like Morgan Freeman’s Hoke, Eddie Murphy’s servile Henry Joseph Church first makes the acquaintance of his lifelong friend when her white family employs him. A mysterious figure who values his privacy, Mr. Church joins the Brooks household at the behest of Marie’s (Natascha McElhone) former lover, an unseen entrepreneur that she ditched when she discovered he was married. But he was so smitten that before he died he left provisions in his will to provide support for the duration of her bout with cancer. Included in those provisions are the services of Mr. Church, a multihyphenate who’s been guaranteed a lifetime salary for a six-month stint in the Brooks’ kitchen. As the months stretch to years and Mr. Church becomes familiar with his host family, he morphs from a cook into an all-around caregiver and a surrogate father to the young Charlotte (Natalie Coughlin). Though initially the ten year old is reluctant to allow her relationship with her mother to be upended by the presence of a strange man in the house, Charlotte eventually comes to appreciate and adore Mr. Church through books, jazz music, painting, and food. It also helps that he exhibits a saintly demeanor when he’s with the Brooks family.

But Mr. Church also has a dark side, a hidden aspect to his character that the grown up Charlotte (Britt Robertson) wants to know. Despite telegraphing his big secret in at least three different ways, Charlotte cannot understand why he would go to a place called Jelly’s every night. As it turns out, he’s a jazz pianist and Jelly’s is an after-hours jazz club. Once the roles are reversed and Charlotte has nursed Mr. Church through his last days, Mr. Jelly himself (Thom Barry) arrives at Church’s wake and tells Charlotte all about it.

But is that it? Why would Mr. Church, who clearly professed a love for jazz music and an aptitude for tickling the ivories, feel the need to hide the fact that he had found an outlet for his passion? That’s absurd. Well, several stray lines of dialogue hint that Church may have been a closeted homosexual. He mumbles through ancient arguments with his abusive father when he comes home drunk, he tells Charlotte of his failed marriage as a young man, and the mysterious illness that claims his life might be AIDS. That would explain his reluctance to be seen at Jelly’s. But there are also clues that indicate he fell in love with Marie while taking care of her, such as a children’s story he tells to Charlotte’s daughter Izzy (Mckenna Grace) and a painting of Marie that he keeps in his bedroom. He certainly takes pains to be sober and smiley by morning, so maybe he just didn’t want Charlotte to know he got drunk every night.

Critics absolutely hated Mr. Church. I understand that for many, myself included, cheap emotional manipulation just doesn’t get the job done. From Charlotte’s perfect prom date to her unexpected pregnancy that brought nothing but blessings to her life, to her unwitting prevention of a homeless drunk’s suicide, the entire script is too perfectly sweet. Maudlin by design. And yet many critics pass by these shortcomings and zero in on the fact that Mr. Church is politically incorrect. How could screenwriter Susan McMartin have the nerve to write about a black person’s life from a white person’s perspective? How dare she suggest that a black man who was abused as a child might find the affection that he had always needed in the employ of a white family? How dare Mr. Church find life purpose in meeting the needs of another person? How dare he exhibit unconditional love toward his informally-adopted daughter even when she disobeys his request for privacy? Why is the privileged Charlotte narrating instead of Mr. Church? Well, see, the thing is, even if you think Mr. Church’s character is incompletely depicted, or if you hate the moral of the story, McMartin has the ultimate trump card: it’s true. It’s based on her own life experiences, no matter how embellished or deficient her screenplay. The problem is that these critics have chosen to attack the film simply because it doesn’t fit with their politically-poisoned worldviews, in which positive stories like this simply cannot exist. Such people cannot fathom selflessness, loyalty, compassion, contentment, humility, forgiveness. Pity them.

Setting that discussion aside, the real reasons to see Mr. Church are the lead performances from Eddie Murphy and Britt Robertson. Murphy, whose reputation precedes him, is playing entirely against type here. His usual red hot charisma is restrained. Jokes, smiles, and laughs are rare occurrences. But his dramatic prowess, heretofore mostly unseen, is simply stunning. His subdued performance includes a number of subtle and unexpected flourishes. One might have hoped that his performance would have led to more dramatic work, but he’s only done comedies in the following years. Robertson carries the emotional arc of the film, shifting from lovestruck teenager to mourning daughter to single mother to doting caretaker. It’s certainly hampered by overbearing sentimentality, melodramatic plotting, and excessive narration, but even while we know we’re being emotionally manipulated, it’s hard to completely reject the poignant moments when they are realized with such passion.