Saw it today with Katie. I will blog on it later, probably tomorrow, but I think the sum of my reaction is essentially…

Well. That was….odd.

Now, I just have to think about why I think that. I suspect it’s because there simply was no overarching, driving artistic vision to the project. It has a terribly cobbled-together feel. As other reviewers have noted, the gritty oppressive-Romans realism doesn’t mesh with the glowing, echo-y angels, not because the two can’t mesh, but because whoever was ultimately responsible for shaping the project (I know…Christian screenwriter, and yes I’m familiar with director Catherine Hardwicke’s work..I know who they are) didn’t think hard or imaginatively enough about how the grit can embody the spiritual. Dare I say that it lacked a…er…grounding in a Catholic visual and imaginative paradigm? And that makes a difference? That’s the part I have to think about.

The only other specific thing I’ll say before a more extended post is that Keisha Castle-Hughes (whom I liked very much in Whale Rider) is either a) the most spectacularly miscast actress of the century so far or b) the most spectacularly ill-directed actress of the century so far. I was ready to pay her money to get her to change her expression. It really got annoying. I’m thinkng that if a less-robotic Mary, who actually looked like she had a brain in her head and a heart beating in her body shared center stage, the film might have been far better.

And all of you who are stressing out about Mary’s labor pains? How about stressing out about the apparent fact that Jesus didn’t have an umilical cord? 

It’s worth seeing for several reasons – it does situate the events political and socially, which is good for young people to see. There are some great faces in the cast. I mean – compelling faces. 

But the question hangs…so? And?