Mary, Mother of Jesus
Amazon.com
This TV movie doesn’t venture far from biblical accounts to dramatize the life of the Virgin Mary. It gets off to a promising start by showing Mary to be a resourceful and brave teenager, as she stands up to Roman soldiers who come thundering on horseback into her village. The production then proceeds chronologically, and the major events of Mary’s life, and the life of Jesus, are played out in dramatic fashion. Mary is portrayed as having to face a series of struggles a… More >>
While Mary Mother of Jesus has some decent acting for a TV special, its portrayal of Mary is fundamentally misguided. The Mary portrayed here is a cross between a feisty feminist icon and the sinless, deathless Goddess of Roman Catholic piety.
The Mary that ISN’T portrayed is the Mary of the Gospels – a good woman with her own set of strengths and flaws who ultimately played a key role in salvation.
Note: the theology of this film is PURE Roman Catholicism and is likely to offend other Christian groups. (For example, John the Baptist is shown dribbling water on people and saying Catholic-sounding comments like “Wash your sins away with water.” I doubt the Baptists in the audience appreciate that much.)
Rating: 2 / 5
I couldn’t finish watching this movie because of the serious inconsistancies with Scripture. There were three advisors listed in the credits, two priests and a rabbi. I wonder how these Catholic priests allowed their names to be associated with this movie.
You can say it is inspirational but if key details are wrong and false, it will ultimately not lead you closer to the Real Jesus because the details are important and relate to the Incarnation as foretold in the Old Testament.
Showed Joseph angry, accusational and cruel about Mary’s pregancy
Omitted Elizabeths greeting of Mary as “Mother of My Lord”
Implied Mary had pain at childbirth
Omitted presentation in the Temple
Showed Mary as the decision maker in going to Egypt
Implied by Jesus’ questions that he didn’t know he was God.
You can learn much more about the life of Jesus looking through the eyes of Mary when you pray the Rosary (which after all is simply the prayer of the Gospel).
Rating: 1 / 5
I’m not reviewing the Biblical accuracy of this movie, or how different religious sects might react to it. I’m just going to review the actual quality of this movie. And that quality is remarkably low.
I’m assuming that this is a made-for-tv movie, because it definitely plays like one, there’s even occasional blackouts, I’m guessing where there were originally commercial breaks. The main problems with this film, and there are several minor ones we won’t concern with, are the production value being incredibly low, the fact that all the actors are white and have ENGLISH accents (they even go so far as to have the owner of the manger where Jesus is born have a COCKNEY accent, as if to show she’s of a lower class, but a lower BRITISH class,mind you), and the stilted dialogue accompanied by painful performances.
Christian Bale is still surprisingly good, even surrounded by so much mediocrity, but one actor can only pull a film so far, especially when the film is focussed on the life of Mary, and so Jesus doesn’t come into the film until about a third of the way through. Bale is really the reason I wanted to see this movie, and it’s almost worth seeing just to see Bale’s intense devotion to his character amidst such an absurd backdrop. You really have to feel bad for him, but also thankful that he got cast in American Psycho the year after this and shot to stardom instead of languishing in films like this for years to come.
Mary, Mother of Jesus is so devastatingly bad that at times it almost seems like a Monty Python parody of a Christian movie. Honestly, if you’re moved by a single frame in this film then you are simply predisposed to enjoy it no matter what the quality, because this film is of the lowest caliber. It gets two stars for Bale’s performance, and the rest gets zero.
Rating: 2 / 5
In 1999, it just so happened that two of the major networks aired versions of the Jesus story the same month. “Jesus,” which I review elsewhere, was one; the other was “Mary, Mother of Jesus.” Of the two, “Jesus” emerged as original and likeable, with MMOJ coming in a distant second.
MMOJ, bankrolled by the very Catholic Shriver Foundation, seeks to highlight the special relationship between Mary and Jesus. Yet it is a queer composite of a movie. On one hand, it seeks to humanize Mary. She is shown as a headstrong (though virtuous) teenage girl who stands up to the Romans and her hotheaded male townsmen. Uncharacteristically for the time period, she runs around without male escort or head covering. She asks no permission of her betrothed, Joseph, to travel to the Judaean hill country to visit her cousin Elizabeth. She is vocal about denouncing fellow male Jews who stone a woman to death for adultery.
On the other hand, the film could easily function as a brief for the defense of the idea of Mary as Co-Redemptrix. This Marian title is being pushed by conservative Catholics (including the late Pope John Paul II) and asks us to accept the idea that Mary was so intimately and necessarily associated with salvation wrought by Christ, a claim rejected by nearly all but the most conservative of Roman Catholics. To this end, we are shown Mary as the source of Jesus’s parables; she tells the Good Samaritan as a bedtime story. When Christ is suffering on the cross and about to give in to despair, she bolsters his spirit–by reciting the Lord’s Prayer–and helps him to endure until the end. She is graced with a non-biblical post-Resurrection appearance. She single-handedly rallies the downhearted disciples to continue her Son’s mission.
The movie is problematic on many fronts. First, it is too short to accommodate the subject matter — and commercial breaks. Criminals are no sooner crucified than their corpses are hauled down from their crosses. And there is the problem of the aging of Mary. Teenage Mary is played adequately (if uni-dimensionally) by Melinda Kinnaman. When we next see Mary a scant 12 years later, Kinnamon has been replaced by Pernilla August, whose easily looks thirty years than the acrtress she replaced. Though she is an actress of far greater range and subtlety, reserving Pernilla for the end of the film, hen Jesus as a grown man, would have flowed better. Architecturally, the film’s depiction of Jerusalem, with odd pointed towers, is completely wrong. And other period films have done a far better job of accurately depicting Roman battle gear.
Theologically, Mary is given a role and influence that the gospels reserve for Jesus alone. Mary and Jesus decide together when it is time to start his mission. They are baptized together by John the Baptist, and Mary accompanies Jesus on much of his mission, rather than occasionally as indicated by Scripture. While this may enthrall the co-redemptrix supporters, it may baffle or even anger others. The movie’s message too is devoid of theological import. Mary urges us to love as Jesus loved, something that could be said about any good person. His role as redeeming Son of God is muted, not unexpected in a mass marketed TV movie.
As a Sunday school teacher, the movie has limited utility, though there it has a few nice features. The annunciation scene, with its shimmering, mirage-like angelic messenger, is visually other-worldly and plausible. Elizabeth seems appropriately too old to be pregnant. And Joseph, played wonderfully by David Threlfall, is plausible as the older spouse of a younger woman. The human love story of Mary and Joseph is beautiful to watch. The real star of the film is the relationship between Jesus and his mother. Christian Bale (in a predecessor to his marvelous role in this year’s “Batman Begins”) plays Jesus as second fiddle to his mother. Though a scene in which he gives a sculpted toy pony to a retarded girl is touching.
“Mary, Mother of Jesus” often strays far from the gospels, but does so with a good heart. Catch the movie as a meditation on the relationship between Mary and Jesus, but supplement it with “Jesus” for a better drama and “Jesus of Nazareth” for scriptural accuracy.
Rating: 3 / 5
When a major network must start its film with a disclaimer that reads, “While dramatic license has been taken, we believe this film reflects the spirit and historical significance of the biblical story of Mary and Jesus,” it is best to turn the channel immediately. After Jesus’ birth, Herod tells his soldiers to kill all children six months and younger, a Bible inaccuracy. Further into the film, Jesus’ family is returning from Egypt, Roman soldiers ride by, and Jesus remarks that Herod must be dead. Jesus is depicted as a teenager in this scene. So when did Herod die?
The next few scenes involve Jesus in the Temple. Mary and Joseph find him, scold the young man, and Jesus remarks that he must be about his Father’s business. Biblically, that’s an accurate portrayal, but the scene just prior to this is not. Jesus is attacked by a local bully, and he refuses to fight. After the confrontation, Jesus asks the question to Mary, “Why do I see these things (not wanting to fight because it solves nothing) but no one else does?” Either Jesus knew who he was or he did not. Throughout the film, this identity crisis is a major theme.
An hour into the film, Jesus is finally ready for ministry, or is he? Mary convinces Jesus to go on his ministry and be baptized by John. In the conversations between Jesus and Mary, Jesus uses the term “we” as if Mary is an essential component to his success. Shortly afterwards, Mary and Jesus are seen walking down a dirt road, and Jesus makes the bizarre statement that he had not heard God’s voice for eighteen years. The last time Jesus had heard the voice was when he was in the temple at the age of twelve, but the Bible makes it very clear that Jesus walked in favor with God and man (Luke 2:52). Jesus was not abandoned by God nor left alone as the film suggests. NBC adds to the theme of uncertainty by depicting Jesus as being fearful. In a night- time scene, Mary and Jesus are walking near a campfire, and they pause to converse. Jesus, visibly shaking and fearful, repeatedly asks the question, “Is it right? Is it right?” As Mary tries to convince him that the power that Jesus feels inside of himself, post-baptism, is an acceptable thing to have and he should use it as part of his mission (NBC, 1999). Clearly, this film has taken liberties beyond what is scripturally acceptable
Rating: 2 / 5