I just got home from watching The Nativity Story. All in all, I would definitely recommend it. First, some quick pros and cons:
Pros.
1) Very well written! The characters were believable, and the cultural context was explained quite nicely (although see the first con below)
2) It wasn’t cheese-ified! That’s right, the angel visitations, etc. didn’t take place with uber-Hollywood special effects. (Now I should point out that the version we saw wasn’t the final cut–hopefully they won’t be stupid and change this part of it!)
3) There was no blatant heresy in it, even in hidden form (like a certain other Jesus film that smuggled in the stations of the cross, for instance…).
4) It was believable. It showed rational linkages between events rather than the all too often (especially on the atheist side of the aisle) assumptions made about events.
Cons.
1) A steep learning curve if one has no familiarity at all with 1C Palestine; shouldn’t be a problem for most Christians, but some people might wonder about the Temple ceremonies, etc.
2) Some of the order of events were changed for purely Hollywood reasons. For instance, we talked with the Producer of the film (he was there at the screening) and he mentioned that they were originally not even going to do the Magnificant but the Catholic advisors protested. They put it in, but not where it occurs in Scripture. A minor point, of course–for Hollywood you have to take some creative license. Still, I prefer theological soundness over Hollywood endings.
3) The manger scene was the only scene that allowed for Hollywood cheese. I think it was a little overdone, but it might be fixed in the final cut. It probably won’t bother Christians, but if you’re going to take your atheist friends to watch it I know they’ll be gagging at the point due to the cheesiness rather than due to the message.
So, with those out of the way….
I would give it an A- over all. Could use a little improvement, but in terms of quality it ranks up there with most other good movies I’ve seen (not a knock-your-socks-off GREAT film, but still good). The three magi actually provided some comic relief, but it wasn’t overdone. It was appropriate and fit what you would see between three close friends (i.e. some semi-sarcastic jabs, etc.). The scene where Mary’s marriage to Joseph was announced to Mary was greatly done too–it fit the historical context of arranged marriages and you got to see some insight into that. Of course, I think part of Mary’s reaction in the film was 21st Centurified since all the people at that time knew they were going into arranged marriages; but still, it illustrated it quite nicely without making it appear to be some stupid tradition that only whackos did. And the struggle Joseph went through when he had to weigh charging Mary with adultery or pretending the child was his was well done too.
Finally, the nice thing about the movie is that it also showed that Joseph was a righteous man! That’s right, I think the Catholics have hijacked the Christmas story with their deificiation of Mary and they only focus on her. This story gave you a human Joseph who was, nevertheless, a Godly man. He actually is one of the great heros of the story, and that’s something that is missing in a lot of Jesus films (mainly because Joseph was probably dead by the time Jesus began His ministry and, since most movies are focusing on Jesus’s death, Joseph is sort of an historical footnote.)
So I would definitely recommend it. Of course, as I watched it I constantly thought, “I know what Daniel Morgan would say at this point.” :-) But I think even atheists such as he might find this movie worthwhile to watch (at least it’s not fluffy cheese fru-fru stuff), and (probably most comforting to the atheists) it’s not “preachy.” All it does is require you to suspend disbelief for the sake of the movie–something every movie does (e.g. if you watch The Matrix while refusing the suspend disbelief that the world could possibly be a computer, you’re not going to “get” the movie; but suspending disbelief for the duration of the movie to get the plot doesn’t require one to suspend disbelief forever, of course). This doesn’t mean that I would say The Nativity Scene is a great “evangelism” movie, but at least it’s a movie that is not going to get slapped with the anti-semitism red herring. I think it has a wider audience appeal, and at the very least would give people something to talk about.
