The Work and the Story has a funny premise. Not long after the release of God’s Army, Richard Dutcher, the founder of Mormon Cinema, disappears and is presumed dead by the media. Excited by the prospect of a missing Dutcher, three novice filmmakers decide they want to take his place as the new Mormon filmmaker.

One of these is Kevin Evans (Eric Artell), who makes short little 10 second films, one of which includes a Book of Mormon battle shot with eggs. Kevin still lives with his parents and so struggles to create films while staying on good terms with his mother.

Judy Schumway (Jen Hoskins) is something of a feminist who has been working on “bad girls of the Bible” films but now turns her attention towards creating an updated version of the Abinadi story – with a younger, better looking Abinadi who doesn’t die in the end.

The largest portion of the film is dedicated to Peter Beuhmann (director and writer Nathan Smith Jones), who actually ends up the funniest character even though it’s the worst performance. Though generally overacted by Jones, Peter is still frequently funny as a naïve, uptight director who takes himself way too seriously. Trying to create the ultimate Mormon romance, Peter makes his movie a ward activity and assigns each member a role in the production.

Though he’s only in a few scenes, Kirby Heybourne has one of the film’s funniest moments as he struggles with the abusive Peter, which evokes bad memories of his father.

The Work and the Story certainly has its humorous moments, but it generally falls flat. Not only is the film too frequently not funny, it’s also often uninteresting. The storylines do lead to a fairly humorous Raising Arizona finish at the end, but gains no momentum along the way.

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