Expecting Amish

This movie is terrible. I wanted to watch because I love reading about the Amish and the blond girl from "the Goldbergs" is in it, but this is truly awful. The characters are flat and unlikeable, there's barely a plot to speak of (and what plot there is is extremely far fetched), and the writing is abysmal. As others here have pointed out, in the first five minutes you can tell that no effort was made whatsoever to depict Amish life accurately. Don't waste your time watching it.

It's like the research of the Amish subject was done exclusively from an inaccurate children's book.

It's an Amish romance set in 2014 in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and Los Angeles, California. It follows a young Amish woman who participates in a rumspringa trip to Los Angeles and the consequences devolving from that trip.

Hannah Yoder (AJ Michalka) lives with her father (Brian Krause), younger sister, and brother. Her mother died three years earlier, so Hannah has been running the household. Everyone assumes after being baptized, Hannah will marry Samuel (Jean-Luc Bilodeau). However, her friends, Mary (Alyson Stoner), Sarah (Aurelia Scheppers), and Isaac (Cayden Boyd), convince Hannah to join them on their rumspringa trip to Los Angeles for a month or six weeks. She hesitantly joins them.

In LA, Hannah slowly begins to explore "English" life, and meets a college techie and disc jockey, Josh (Jesse McCartney). Ultimately, she must decide between Josh and Samuel.

"Expecting Amish" is a Lifetime movie with a woefully weak script and little linkage to reality. Samuel has a wooden manner and looks nothing like an Amish man. The community meets in a plain church (which doesn't happen) and shuns offenders whether or not they have been baptized. Rumspringa, where practiced, doesn't operate this way with the church's blessing. Elder/Bishop Miller (Ron Ely) baptizes by immersion in the lake. The ceremonies make no sense. Much of the dialogue is canned and predictable, along with the lack of research.

For a movie with such a low budget, that was obvious at some points in the film, they did an amazing job! They had an excellent cast as well! The only thing I would have to say, is that the connection between josh and Hannah was very circumstantial. I didn't see much of a bond between the two, and their conversations were average at best. For a couple to have such a strong connection as the movie attempted to portray, they needed to talk more to each other then every 30 seconds.

Oh dear. Who researched the Amish for this movie? No credibility. This scriptwriter was operating on a stereotyped version of religious people that rings false at every turn. Let me count the ways: (1) Amish do NOT wear buttons at all. Ever. (2) They-do NOT have church buildings but worship every other Sunday in one another's homes. (3) Amish do not believe in religious symbols; the crosses on the "church" and the interior wall would never be seen in Amish country (4) rumspringa-the teen-age period of living away from home in the "world" can last a year or more unless they are unhappy out there and come back home sooner. That giddy 2-week vacation in an upscale house with cute wardrobes was just unrealistic. (4) where did the money come from? Amish are not poor but they are frugal (5) Amish female attire allows for only dark colors (6) Amish conduct worship services in their Germanic language only (7) They all speak this language at home. (8) They do not use hymnals (8) Theirs is a pacifist religion. They would Never sing "Onward Christian Soldiers". (8) they learn English as a second language in school; their English has a distinct German accent (9) they are hardly that clueless as they work for and with "the English" all the time in our homes, our shops, our industries and are familiar with modern conveniences -like toasters. They are just not allowed-or choose not- to own such items or have them in their homes or farms.(10) They are not allowed to have or play musical instruments (11) Brandenburg Concerto"? They don't attend concerts, or know classical music. This false depiction of a hard-working people shows utter disrespect for them, and the soap opera plot was hackneyed and predictable..