Spoilers!
Another Costco special, as it were. Sort of dramatic, literalist CBN/Evangelical type docu-drama, with a particular view of Mary perhaps not shared by everyone, such as Catholics, Muslims, or even the High Anglican? The actress portrays her as petulant, defiant, confused, and so on. It just seems like one of Mary's sisters, rather than Mary. Joseph seems about right, physically tall (Mary was prob. on the tallish side, too), concerned with her welfare more than anything, and so on.
The Bible isn't quite consulted so much; surprizing for an evangelical type of film, perhaps. Mary was supposed to shelter in a cave used as a shepherd's stable outside of town, not in a livery. The cousin, Elizabeth, knew when Mary walked up she was pregnant, not afterward when they were in the house. The wise men showing up before the birth, when it's more likely they went to a house that Mary went to after the census crush, and only later she fled to Egypt (and the whole Egypt thing is missing, of course - which might have been very interesting). And things like that.
And of course there's the British accent thing - associated with Shakespeare, 'high drama'. It probably sounds like nit-picking, but too much melodrama, in this way, too much silence, too many 'meaningful' gazes, makes everything look and sound too scripted and too forced. It's not a story, but a film about a story. It's self-consciously a collection of scenes, and that's what comes through.
Not a movie to recommend. It's slow. It's bad filmmaking. Even the old Biblical quick-cut epics had more character development and plot. People complain of the Hollywood treatment of good stories, and the resulting middling to bad films. But you can give a story a bad religious treatment, too, even if it's not Hollywood. And if you don't have even basic Hollywood screenwriting to fall back on, for what it's worth, it can really wind up - sort of like this film.
Another Costco special, as it were. Sort of dramatic, literalist CBN/Evangelical type docu-drama, with a particular view of Mary perhaps not shared by everyone, such as Catholics, Muslims, or even the High Anglican? The actress portrays her as petulant, defiant, confused, and so on. It just seems like one of Mary's sisters, rather than Mary. Joseph seems about right, physically tall (Mary was prob. on the tallish side, too), concerned with her welfare more than anything, and so on.
The Bible isn't quite consulted so much; surprizing for an evangelical type of film, perhaps. Mary was supposed to shelter in a cave used as a shepherd's stable outside of town, not in a livery. The cousin, Elizabeth, knew when Mary walked up she was pregnant, not afterward when they were in the house. The wise men showing up before the birth, when it's more likely they went to a house that Mary went to after the census crush, and only later she fled to Egypt (and the whole Egypt thing is missing, of course - which might have been very interesting). And things like that.
And of course there's the British accent thing - associated with Shakespeare, 'high drama'. It probably sounds like nit-picking, but too much melodrama, in this way, too much silence, too many 'meaningful' gazes, makes everything look and sound too scripted and too forced. It's not a story, but a film about a story. It's self-consciously a collection of scenes, and that's what comes through.
Not a movie to recommend. It's slow. It's bad filmmaking. Even the old Biblical quick-cut epics had more character development and plot. People complain of the Hollywood treatment of good stories, and the resulting middling to bad films. But you can give a story a bad religious treatment, too, even if it's not Hollywood. And if you don't have even basic Hollywood screenwriting to fall back on, for what it's worth, it can really wind up - sort of like this film.