Toni Braxton is showing off her acting chops in Lifetime’s original movie Twist of Faith.
The “Un-Break My Heart” singer stars alongside David Julian Hirsh and Mykelti Williamson, who is best known for his role as Benjamin Buford Blue in Forrest Gump.
Lifetime describes the film as a “fictional, cross-cultural, music infused love story.”
In Twist of Faith, Jacob Fisher (Hirsh), an Orthodox Jewish Cantor and amateur songwriter who resides in Brooklyn, New York, witnesses the senseless murder of his wife and three children. Catatonic, Jacob walks out on his Jewish mourning ritual, leaving behind his Jewish garments, wallet and keys. Abandoning his identity, he wanders aimlessly, hoping somehow to understand his tragedy. Fortuitously, he lands in Brent, Alabama (population 2,500), where he is embraced by Nina (Braxton), a single mother and the lead singer of a small gospel choir (an unlikely finalist in the competition to determine the best gospel choir in Alabama), her Uncle Moe (Williamson) and their gospel community who help his return to life while music brings Nina and Jacob together as they try to make sense of his past and their possible future.
Braxton’s last major film role was in 2002’s Kingdom Come, which also starred LL Cool J, Jada Pinkett Smith, Vivica A. Fox, and Loretta Devine.
Twist of Faith premieres on Lifetime February 9 at 8/7c.
Follow Chris Witherspoon on Twitter at @WitherspoonC