In her first two films (“Thirteen” and “Dogtown and the Z-Boys”), set designer-turned-director Catherine Hardwicke examined teen growing pains from the perspective of the bleary-eyed participants. With her mix of cut-and-slash editing and nervy frankness, Ms. Hardwicke took what could have been just another couple of racy throwaway “after-school” specials and transformed them into important works.
On the surface, the religious drama “The Nativity Story” was an unusual third project choice for Ms. Hardwicke. It, too, has a lead teen character (the Virgin Mary) and, although not troubled, she is subject to relentless doubt and ridicule.
Happy Medium
“The Nativity Story” flies in the face of the typical religious epic by daring to depict the birth of Jesus Christ in a manner some find highly unconventional.Many movies have been made about the birth of Christ, and all of them are handled with either overly delicate, kid gloves or heavy-handed, overwrought, religious posturing. Not only does Ms. Hardwicke strike a happy medium between these two divergent styles, but she also manages to deliver the all-important and often overlooked political backstory.
In an effort to nip in the bud a possible future overthrow of his reign, Roman King Herod (Ciarán Hinds) orders the deaths of all Jewish newborn boys. The film opens with hordes of soldiers going door-to-door, stealing male children from their parents, and slaughtering them. Thankfully, Ms. Hardwicke handles this flash-forward segment off-screen, and with the most delicate of care, but the effect is still unnerving and deeply unsettling.
Fantasy Missteps
While mostly grounded in reality, Ms. Hardwicke and screenwriter Mike Rich include fantasy sequences that sometimes take us out of the moment. One such scene features Mary and the angel Gabriel (Alexander Siddig), who tells her of God’s plans for her. Both the dialogue and visuals go a bit too far, and temporarily take the film in a fabricated, only-in-the-movies direction.
Ms. Hardwick’s subplot of the parallel journey of the Three Wise Men starts out with promise, but often drifts into a bad camel-driven road flick where the three men exchange borderline comical, satirical barbs. Giving these characters a smaller, less vocal presence might have worked better.
Rotten Tomatoes
It should come as no surprise to regular viewers of Christian-based films that “The Nativity Story” received mostly negative critical reviews (37 percent) on the aggregate site rottentomatoes.com. Conversely, the audience score is 76. This is not an isolated incident.The critical and audience scores for “The Passion of the Christ” from 2003 were 49 percent and 80 percent, respectively. For the 2016 “Risen,” the numbers were 53 and 70 percent. Just last year, four high-profile Christian movies had similar scoring discrepancies: “Sound of Freedom” (57 and 99), “After Death” (50 and 87), “The Shift” (39 and 87), and “The Oath” (30 and 86).
For the record, I rated all of the above titles at 3.5/5 or better. That either makes me a critical outlier and contrarian, or perhaps I’m more aligned with the masses than others that do the same job as me. Or, it could be that the majority of film critics simply have it out for movies of faith.
