I have a confession: when I was a kid, I had a huge crush on that guy from Jurassic Park. No, not Sam Neill or Jeff Goldblum, but the boy who nearly dies on the electric fence: Tim Murphy, played by Joseph Mazzello. I followed Mazzello’s career over the coming years by watching him in a bunch of random films, most notably in the movies The Cure and Simon Birch, both of which made me cry many tears.

I found out recently via his Instagram that he had just starred in the 2023 film Unexpected. Even though I’m a grown woman now with a husband and kids, I was still excited about seeing my childhood crush back in action in a lead role. When I settled down to view Unexpected, I was expecting – based on the trailer – a fun romantic comedy starring one of my favorite actors. Instead, I was surprised by a film that had the most unexpectedly pro-life themes that I had seen in a long time. And yes, Joseph Mazzello’s acting brought me to tears once again.

Unexpected follows a young couple named Bob (Mazzello) and Amy (Anna Camp, who you may remember from the Pitch Perfect films). The movie opens with the couple receiving the news that they likely won’t be able to conceive children of their own. Amy wants to look into adoption, but Bob has some qualms about the idea. He struggles with depression, his career, and his ability to care for himself, much less another human being.

Along the way, Bob and Amy buy a fixer-upper and get to work transforming it into a livable space. They slowly accrue a plethora of animals on their property, starting with a rabbit that Bob initially hates, and later includes a group of ducks and turkeys that he eventually names and learns to care for. Meanwhile, Bob and Amy cross paths with a younger couple, Shirlee and Gerard. The teens are facing an unexpected pregnancy, and an obvious solution forms between the four individuals. However, as usual, life doesn’t go exactly as planned.

The character of Shirlee was one of the biggest surprises of the film. She shares about her personal inability to abort, and her acknowledgement that her baby has a soul – or as she says, a spirit. She also delivers some of the most thought-provoking lines of the movie. At one point she explains to her baby’s grandfather, “I am a kid. I know that. And we did a stupid thing. Kids do stupid things. But just because we made one mistake doesn’t mean we have to make another. And just don’t think that this is easy for me. That I don’t love this baby. It’s easy to hang onto a child that you love. Loving a child so much that you’re willing to let it go, that isn’t so easy.” That, my friends, is one of the most beautiful sentiments about adoption that I have ever heard.

Mazzello, as Bob, also offers some moments of wisdom. He introduces the idea that who we are is not what we are, but what we are to each other. This is magnified by a scene in which he rushes to the store to buy a cartload of items to help save one of his turkeys, who suffered an accident and is dying. In his rush to come to the aid of this pet that he loves, he sees a shelf of frozen turkeys waiting to be bought and eaten. The irony of the situation is clear – what separates his animal from the others is the love he has for it and the relationship they have formed. This situation is one of many over the course of film that transforms his view of adoption.

Not to be missed is Amy’s authentic insight into what it means to be a woman who can’t biologically reproduce. However, throughout the film we see her mothering qualities, from her work as a nurse to how she imperfectly interacts with Bob. Her faith in the movie is subtle, but she is often seen with a cross hanging from her neck. She also shows extreme kindness to Shirlee, even when others look down on Shirlee for her choices, even though Shirlee so easily and accidentally gets pregnant – the very thing Amy desires the most.

There is an examination of life through generations of repeated mistakes and how some connections seem almost pre-ordained. There is a minor character who attempts to take his own life and realizes how much he does want to live – and Bob’s role in saving the character teaches him even more about the value of life and what it means to care for another.

Yes, there was romance and yes, there was comedy (like the film’s comical yet sadly accurate depiction of our country’s failing health care system). But Unexpected also reveals many hard truths about the sacredness, difficulties, and beauty of life itself – and how we are all connected.

You can rent or buy Unexpected through Amazon Prime Video, YouTube, Vudu, Google Play, and Apple TV, or you can find it for free – like I did – on your local library’s Hoopla app.