The Nativity Story

It’s safe to say that Catherine Hardwicke is probably the closest thing to a new millennium John Hughes that we have. She’s made two impressive low budget examinations of teen angst (Thirteen and Lords of Dogtown) that chart the frustration, the exuberance, and the addled minds of today’s ultra smart and ultra troubled youth. You would think that a director with her resume would work wonders with the story of the ultimate angsty teen: the pregnant by God and stuck in a tight jam Virgin Mary. Unfortunately, Hardwicke has brought none of her low tech passion to the tale, settling instead for a visually beautiful and period accurate (save for the constant English speaking) exercise in costuming and set design that brings none of the appeal of her other films to the table. Rather than merging her distinct style and indie roots with a complex historical epic, (like say Sofia Coppola’s artful Marie Antoinette) Hardwicke lets herself be bogged down by a dense and passionless interpretation of an age old (and therefore quite worn out) story.

However well her visual palette flatters the dramatics and her talented cast, Hardwicke cannot overcome the fact that this is a tired and lifeless recounting of a story that has been done many times before. The Nativity Story is no better than an utterly cut and dry Christmas special on the Prayer Channel or some cheesy History Channel reenactment done with a grander budget and a better director. It cribs the good ‘ol lines of Bible lore and photographs them nicely without ever digging into this tumultuous tale for its potential as a riveting dramatic experience. For example, when the ridiculous looking angel (worth quite and undramatic titter unto himself) tells Mary of her fate, she uninterestingly mutters “Let it be done unto me as you have said.” This is a line that stings with boring Bible translation and does so very little to humanize the character. Where is her fear? Her concern? Her passion? We do not connect with Mary. We do not understand her feelings. We just see the same old story once more, with less feeling.

I’m a huge fan of Hardwicke’s previous films and I wanted very much to like this one as well, but this is a disastrous misstep for an otherwise audacious and inventive director. Her creativeness withers here as she becomes strangled by a general sense of rigidity and an ill advised plunge into goofy Church pageant theatrics. Her greatest skill is her ability to make films feel genuine and natural, but this movie feels more insincere than most of the others that I’ve seen this year. Even the gifted cast (including Oscar nominees Keisha Castle-Hughes and Shohreh Aghdashloo) can’t muster decent readings of these cold lines or create interesting characters out of such poorly crafted parts. This is like a hollow shell of a film. It looks appealing on the outside, but there’s no heart beneath the surface.

Grade: C-