‘Nativity’ too much like ’50s biblical epics

Frame by frame, “The Nativity Story” succeeds at bringing the story of Jesus’ birth to life but fails to illuminate the hope and faith the child’s birth sparked.

Director Catherine Hardwicke and screenwriter Mike Rich fill the screen with all the human emotions left out of the Gospel. At the same time, the duo offers a movie that duplicates all that was wrong with the biblical epics of the 1950s.

In interviews with the Christian and secular press, the screenwriter and the director have said that they sought to flesh out the intimate emotions among Mary, her parents and Joseph. That kind of exploration of feelings is part of the cultural landscape of Western civilization in the 21st century, but was not necessarily part of first century Palestine.

Vatican officials and American Christian leaders who screened the movie before its November release in American theaters approved of the filmmakers’ personalized approach. Others, however, have argued that the film strays too far from the book in two specific instances.

The angel appeared to Mary while she was spinning, not picking olives as is portrayed in the film. The shepherds and the Magi did not arrive to adore the child until 12 days after his birth – celebrated in Western Christianity on the Epiphany, Jan. 6. In the film, they arrive shortly after Jesus’ birth.

Trained as an architect, Hardwicke worked as a production designer before becoming a director, so “The Nativity Story” has stunningly beautiful sets. Shot primarily in southern Italy with most of the scenes taking place outside, the film depicts how Jews lived and were persecuted 2,000 years ago.

The director’s attention to the details of that hardscrabble life accentuates why the Messiah arrived on Earth when he did. The hand-to-mouth existence Mary and her family leads stands in harsh contrast to the luxury in which King Herod and other Romans live.

Although screenwriter Rich’s dialogue sometimes sounds stilted and hokey, the conversations between characters sound authentic to 21st century ears. He needs to work on his angels, however. Surely the Holy Spirit did not appear to believers as a greeting card suddenly come to life as it does in the film.

In the end it is not sight but sounds that does this epic in. Mychael Danna’s overwrought score diminishes the film at every turn, especially in the final scenes at the manger. If Hardwicke and Rich set out to wring the pumped-up pageantry out of the biblical films made by Cecil B. DeMille and directors of his ilk, then the Canadian composer stuck them back in with his overly orchestrated symphonic score. Traditional Jewish prayers and songs would have helped to weave a tapestry of sound more attuned to the stark and stunning visual images in the film.

The performances by the ensemble cast, led by Keisha Castle-Hughes as Mary, Oscar Isaac as Joseph and Ciaran Hinds as King Herod, are first-rate. Some critics have described the three wise men – Balthasar, Melchior and Gaspar – as the Three Stooges. They come across more like bickering scholars who have spent too many years together.

“The Nativity Story” is destined to be a holiday classic, the same way “The Ten Commandments” has become a staple of the Lenten season. Both suffer from the same weakness – the book is much, much better.