Coming clean on the Nativity movie

Okay, I’ve been working too long on other writing, and am glad for the diversion. I want so many people to get out there and see The Nativity Story without coloring their view ahead of time, I held back some personal reactions that weren’t — in the grand scheme of things — a big deal. But now I see it’s not just me…

Amy hit on one of the things that bugged me, too, from the beginning of the movie. Definitely, it had a “cobbled together feel.” Well put. I wouldn’t have put my finger on that, but glad you did.

The only other specific thing I’ll say before a more extended post is that Keisha Castle-Hughes (whom I liked very much in Whale Rider) is either a) the most spectacularly miscast actress of the century so far or b) the most spectacularly ill-directed actress of the century so far. I was ready to pay her money to get her to change her expression. It really got annoying. I’m thinkng that if a less-robotic Mary, who actually looked like she had a brain in her head and a heart beating in her body shared center stage, the film might have been far better.

I can’t tell you how much this bugged me from the beginning of the film. She never changed her expression, not even when the angel Gabriel appeared to her (I always picture ‘him’ differently, too, but is that being shallow?). There was no depth or dimension or emotion or…anything refleced on Mary’s fact except, yes, a serenity. But static and unbroken, as opposed to profound. More like an utter detachment. (Am I making moral judgments? Or just being a movie critic?)  And while I’m at it, no, I don’t think Joachim and Anne were that way, but I’ll give the movie the artistic license it deserves.

And all of you who are stressing out about Mary’s labor pains? How about stressing out about the apparent fact that Jesus didn’t have an umilical cord?

At that point, you just had to chalk it up to artistic rendering of what some artists are unable to render any other way. 

It’s worth seeing for several reasons – it does situate the events political and socially, which is good for young people to see. There are some great faces in the cast. I mean – compelling faces.

And how about those Wise Men?!

Look, some of the wonderful seminarians from the Order of St. John Cantius stood and talked with me for a while after the screening, and decided that these questions aside, ‘you can’t shoot yourself in the foot’ for want of accuracy in walking through the whole project and presenting on the big screen the true story of Christmas. They liked it a lot, and so did I.

I loved Joseph, and wish they hadn’t depicted him in those few moments of ‘un-Joseph-like’ behavior, but maybe I’m being too purist. I loved his qualities of devotion, strength and self-sacrifice finally coming through.

So there. If you haven’t seen it yet, by all means do. It is the Gospel, with a little cinematic liberty taken but nothing too flagrant. The Nativity Story is a good antidote to the alternative messages of Christmas we can’t escape out there. There’s no denying this is what it was always about.