THE YOUNG MESSIAH review from Sr. Helena Burns

The Young Messiah is the best Jesus movie ever. Based on Anne Rice’s historical novel, Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt, it combines the latest and best in filmmaking, the dramatic arts, mature biblical scholarship, theology and imagination. It is biblically and theologically sound (always a tricky task when speaking about Jesus, but even more so the Child Jesus and his “human knowledge”–what did he/didn’t he allow himself to know in his humanity?) There has been some talk that “apocryphal writings” inspired some scenes. “Apocryphal” does not mean “Gnostic.” The apocryphal Proto-Evangelium of James was used by early Christians as devotional reading. But it’s not the Word of God.

FILMMAKERS DID THEIR HOMEWORK

The Young Messiah shows lots of homework was done. No trendy twenty-first-century ideas plopped in. No outlandish “what if” musings (beyond Jesus bringing a bird back to life). The dialogue is so carefully crafted that every word effortlessly rings true in these fully fleshed-out and delightful characters. The text of the Scriptures is faithfully adhered to (without really taking liberties) and then sundry plot points–that totally work–are skillfully woven in to bring life to the text. Every scene is to support the text, not draw away from it. All exposition is invisible and clever. The British-accented cast slays it.

This story of one year in the life of the Child Jesus begins with Jesus in Egypt being bullied by another boy from the Jewish community, and escalates into some gripping action which it maintains to one degree or another throughout the film. Never boring. Never trite. There are no hackneyed turns of phrases. The theology is precise. This film has everything in it but the sensational.