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prairiefire52
Reviews
The Nativity (2010)
Finally a retelling that does justice to the Joseph character
I agree with the other reviewers. This retelling of the Christian nativity story is a very pleasant surprise. No one is surrounded by any weird glows; schmaltzy music does not swell every three minutes. Angels are not accompanied by sparkly fog. The storyline contains no surprises, of course. The biggest liberty the screenwriters take is to speed up the wise men's arrival.
I've always wondered why nativity retellings didn't make more of the Joseph character. This one finally does, and it turns out that treating Joseph as a three-dimensional character central to the plot worked even better than I thought it would. This Joseph is fully believable and just as conflicted and confused as one would expect. He is a good man who wants to be good to his word and who fully expected his fiancée to be true to hers. This treatment made me realize that Joseph's story is probably more relevant to regular humans than those of the other characters. Joseph is fully human, non-divine, non-chosen, no one special--a regular Joe (sorry!) just like you and me. He had the choice to trust and risk looking like a world-class chump, or to protect his pride by refusing to trust. That's a dilemma that is worth watching, even if you know how the story comes out in the end.
Legends of the Fall (1994)
Susanna, the Human MacGuffin
A MacGuffin is an object that the characters value and that drives the plot, but the specific nature of the object is not important. In some movies, the nature of the MacGuffin is never explained to the audience. In thrillers, that can work. In human-relationship dramas, not so much.
Writers Shilliday and Witliff create Susanna (Ormond) as a human MacGuffin. She is beautiful; end of story. No back story, no motivations, no personality, nothing.
The fact that a cardboard cutout could alter the courses of their lives made me lose interest in the characters of the three brothers, and when Susanna was finally removed from the story line, I was still wondering whether the audience was supposed to care.
20% visual delight; 80% irritating script.