Movie review: ‘The Nativity Story’

How do you make one of the most familiar stories in western civilization fresh again, finding a new perspective on the tale without taking unacceptable liberties with exalted characters? No, we’re not talking about James Bond here, but the Bible.

Catherine Hardwicke’s lovely film “The Nativity Story” views Jesus’ birth from a perspective that honors the ancient texts without reducing them to a banal procession of Sunday school cliches. Focusing on the emotional impact of the story’s miraculous events, the film is reverent and entertaining, familiar in the surface particulars while portraying the characters with a novel degree of humanity. It fulfills our expectations while questioning some preconceptions.

Hardwicke, whose edgy teen-rebel films “Thirteen” and “The Lords of Dogtown” were notably lacking in piety, brings several valuable assets to the project. A veteran production designer, she weaves locations in Israel, Morocco and Italy into a harsh and majestic Holy Land whose architecture, costumes and population look realistically weathered. More important, she understands the feelings of young people overwhelmed by forces beyond their control, precisely the state in which Mary, and later Joseph, find themselves. Not only the look but the emotions are genuine in this film.

Mike Rich’s intelligent screenplay sifts through various gospels for maximum dramatic impact. Roman centurions bully the Judeans like gangsters in a shakedown, demanding tax payments that bring many hardscrabble farmers to ruin. Their appointed king, Herod the Great, rules the Holy Land with paranoid brutality, preoccupied with the Old Testament prophecy of a newborn messiah who will topple his reign.

The characters face personal tribulations as well. Mary enters her arranged marriage to Joseph more dutiful than thrilled. When an angel visits her in an olive grove, informing her she has been chosen to bear mankind’s savior, her awareness that she’ll never know the commonplace joys of motherhood is manifest. Joseph takes some time to digest his destiny, growing into his goodness gradually. Some in their community shun them, attributing Mary’s miraculous, and quite visible, pregnancy to earthly transgression.

As in contemporary life, pain finds a release in humor. When he leads Mary on their way from Nazareth to Bethlehem past a clutch of matrons with accusing expressions, Joseph wryly observes, “They’ll miss us.” Rich tweaks amusing moments from the three wise men grumbling their way across the desert, but also includes offhand dialogue that speaks volumes. When Joseph remarks that some shepherds spend their whole lives alone, the comment could be a direct description of the life awaiting their son.

The film is deftly cast, with Keisha Castle-Hughes (“Whale Rider”) as a sweetly sensitive Mary, and Oscar Isaac as the arranged husband who is promised to her as “a good man” and becomes one. Shohreh Aghdashloo (“House of Sand and Fog”) is compelling in the small role of Mary’s sympathetic cousin Elizabeth, also miraculously with child (John the Baptist), while the Irish actor Ciaran Hinds makes a surprisingly effective Herod, calculating and menacing without hand-rubbing melodrama.

The film weakens a bit in the final stretch, as divine light fills the manger in a scene befitting a Hallmark holiday card; but until that moment, “The Nativity Story” is refreshingly original, an inspiring version for our age and, maybe, for the ages.

THE NATIVITY STORY
3 ½ stars
Starring: Keisha Castle-Hughes, Oscar Isaac, Shohreh Aghdashloo
Directed by: Catherine Hardwicke
Rated PG for some violent content