Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with a review of the upcoming Jesus Day celebration film THE NATIVITY STORY. On one hand, I think the idea of casting Keisha Castle-Hughes as Mary is really damn interesting, keeping the holy mother as creepy-young as she was in the book. On the other hand, they don't really try to hide the Christian Cash-In post PASSION angle too much. What did our reviewer, "Bimbo Baggins", have to say?
I can only feel slightly bitter-sweet about another “Christian” film being released by a major film studio, this time The Nativity Story by New Line. When The Passion and Narnia made a killing at the box office, Hollywood took notice and one-by-one the studios began to kick-start “moral” film divisions within their production companies. While it’s encouraging to see Hollywood attempt to put out wholesome entertainment for the entire family, the intentions strictly remain fixed upon The Almighty Dollar, not moral filmmaking. This itself isn’t cause for concern, as it is nothing new, however the marketing and promotional push toward sermons, bible studies, and bible bookmarks is intrusive and forced. And when The Nativity Story is released this Christmas, churches will once again be surrounded by New Line’s politicking and buck-begging, just as Walden did for Narnia and, to a lesser, more groundbreaking extent, Icon did with The Passion. Jesus, himself, would probably be upending tables at such a sight. Albeit along the same vein as The Passion, The Nativity Story is aiming at a different audience. Although unrated at the time I saw it, the film should have no problem garnering a PG rating, hardly comparable to The Passion’s envelope R. And while violence and gore limited The Passion crowd to 18+, The Nativity Story’s centering on the birthing of babies, teenage angst, and young love will no doubt be drawing a similarly-minded crowd into the theater. Fortunately, the strong acting by Keisha Castle-Hughes (Whale Rider) and especially Oscar Isaac in their respective leading roles as Mary and Joseph propel this film. I was pleasantly surprised by Isaac, whose subtleties brought heaps of humility to a challenging role. Watch as he tiptoes around Mary’s response with such fragility after asking her parent’s permission for marriage: glancing worriedly at them, and hopefully back at Mary, and back again to her parents. His face conveys much more age than Mary’s but his sensitivities compliment her youth and naiveté nicely. Then again, Castle-Hughes remains the focal point of the story, as much of what we encounter as an audience is through her point of view, her eyes. It is just unfortunate that the huge smile audiences came to love in Whale Rider takes a backseat to her furrowed brow and pained glances. Mary lives in a time where King Herod’s taxcollector’s threaten not only the livestock and crops, but also the young girls of the village. When their echoing horse’s hooves carve into the roads in slow motion, one can only guess that trouble is near. The pressures Mary is faced with are troubling and overwhelming, but we never got to see her playfulness, her innocence, or her heart race as she slowly fights but eventually falls in love with her arranged husband. Director Catherine Hardwick seems an unlikely candidate for such a historical “epic” as The Nativity Story aims to be, especially with her only real directing experience being two emotionally-intense, teenage docudramas, yet she handles the film well. Some of her handheld work is nice, and her feminine insight is helpful in identifying with Mary is necessary, but in general the pacing of the film is slow, with hiccups of action that seem to have made the final cut thanks to studio script notes, not naturally accompanying the plot. Unsurprisingly, the film is also not without its clichés. The color timing is the chosen “grey/brown and bleached” as we have come to expect from this genre. The three wise Magi bring the film’s only real comic relief, thankfully countering every other characters’ moping. The music by Mychael Danna runs seemingly wall-to-wall, piping up during every scene and often misplaced in tone (note the scene where pregnant Mary finally returns home and Joseph and her father square off at the surprise. The audience chuckled at their “whodunnit” confusion while the music pounded away intensely, pushing for conflict.) The Nativity Story won’t be the next Passion, although the comparisons will abound, but it will still probably make a ton of money just because of its theme, release date, and more family-friendly target audience. It’s not as well done as The Passion but, again, it is better to see a good and moral story coming out of a Hollywood studio than no film at all. Let’s just hope New Line can stay out of the sermons with this one and stick to the one-sheets where marketing belongs.
