“The Nativity Story”
Director Catherine Hardwicke
New Line Cinema
“The Nativity Story” is an exercise in
verisimilitude and historical perfection.
Each costume, each dirty fingernail, and each Middle Eastern
city is created with rigorous care. Yet it is not only an elaborate
costume party; each actor appears to honestly inhabit his or her
role. Every frame is brimming with authenticity.
Unfortunately, “The Nativity Story” does not always
communicate to its audience the passion that clearly went into it.
Often, it feels dull and even lifeless.
The plot is pretty much faithful to its source material. Mary,
played by “Whale Rider” Oscar nominee Keisha
Castle-Hughes, is a simple teenager who becomes pregnant with the
boy who will grow to be Jesus Christ. The father is, of course, no
mere mortal, but God himself. When her husband Joseph is forced to
travel 100 miles to Bethlehem on account of a Roman-instituted
census, she goes with him, and so begins their long journey.
It’s a story millions know by heart, and director
Catherine Hardwicke (“Thirteen”) is as respectful to it
as she can possibly be. But she’s so respectful that the film
continually gets mired in a mundane swamp of cliche and compromise.
“The Nativity Story” takes not one risk, and it suffers
as a result.
Pivotal sequences are played out with curious detachment. When
Mary first meets the archangel Gabriel, Mary does not seem even
slightly surprised. In fact, she doesn’t seem to feel
anything at all. There is no awe, shock or reverence in her
expression. She just seems sedated.
Most of the dialogue isn’t any more involving. It’s
all typical historical epic-speak: portentous declarations and
unnatural statements which drive the story forth with minimal
subtlety and maximum comprehensiveness.
Even the villains are uninspiring. King Herod (Ciarán Hinds
from “Munich”) and his Roman soldiers are all
stereotypically evil caricatures. They hardly seem human and,
therefore, their sins hold no moral weight.
But the film survives despite its many problems.
The beautiful cinematography notably and aptly depicts the long
voyage and palpable landscape, and finally, it is Oscar
Isaac’s revelatory performance as Joseph that is most worthy
of mention. He emerges as the unlikely emotional core of the film,
endowing even the most trivial of sequences with warmth. Thanks to
Isaac, the movie gains a final epic sweep. He grounds the movie in
personal reality and his journey seems all the more significant for
it.