SPOILERS:
If recent box office trends in 2014 have proven anything, it’s that there’s a sizable audience ready to spend their money on religion or Bible-themed movies, quality and star power be damned. Just a quick glance at theatrical releases such as Heaven Is for Real and Son of God, both of which spent multiple weeks in the top 10 at the US box office, and it’s clear that an untapped demand for more “spiritual” content has finally been noticed. Within that context, the arrival of 125 million dollar Noah doesn’t initially seem as that much of a surprise, and yet, it comes as a subversive game-changer.
In other words, those expecting a heart-warming tale of a long-bearded Noah and cute and cuddly animals entering the ark two by two should look elsewhere. Keeping in mind that this film comes from Darren Aronofsky, director of Requiem for a Dream and Black Swan, what you’ll find with this latest big screen retelling of the ancient Biblical tale of Noah’s Ark is a provocative and occasionally unsettling story that isn’t your typical Sunday school rendition. We quickly learn all the familiar background elements of the story, from Adam and Eve’s temptation with the Apple to the murder of Abel by Cain. The basic components are still all the same as well: Noah (Crowe) is a good man who is given the task by God (or as he’s called in the film, the “Creator”) of protecting Earth’s innocent animals from an imminent great flood designed to wash away the evil men of the world.
So far so good, but it isn’t long before this new version departs from its source material, and this is due to one important reason: the remarkable brevity of the aforementioned source material. The story of the Flood in the Bible covers only about four chapters and is very light on details; a challenge for any screenwriter, especially one trying to find enough content to fill a feature length film. In fact, aside from the stark and unique style of the opening sequence, the first thing you’ll notice about Noah is how daring it is when it departs from the conventional narrative. And this is for the simple reason that Aronofsky isn’t really interested in just telling the basic rudimentary story of Noah’s Ark. The film labors to explain certain “unbelievable” aspects of the story, adding details such as the assistance of several fallen angels called “Watchers” in building the ark or the usage of a special herb concoction to drug and control the thousands of animals, but it doesn’t explicitly dwell on them. Aronofsky isn’t that interested in the nuts and bolts of the story, mainly because he understands what’s important in the tale of Noah and the Ark.
What this film is more interested in capturing is the struggle of a man placed in an unenviably difficult position of having the fate of the human race in his hands and the various moral dilemmas and repercussions that arise from such a situation; it is a challenging and compelling approach that does not pander to its audience or soften the harsh edges of the story. The film also surprisingly includes an action-filled pivotal and impactful scene that definitely was not in the original tale and clearly smacks of a desire to inject some excitement into proceedings. While arguably unnecessary, its inclusion is understandable, mainly because the film does tend to meander a bit with much of the posturing and ruminating between the various characters proving to be slightly redundant.
The film spends considerable time on a number of subplots covering the evolving hatred of Noah’s eldest sons towards their father, but none of it feels as satisfactory or as well done as the central elements of the film. Noah is most effective when it centers on Russell Crowe’s titular character; it weakens whenever it strays anywhere else. With only the guidance of ambiguous dreams and the oblique wisdom of his grandfather Methuselah (Hopkins) to help him, Noah is a man who knows firsthand the evil that humanity is capable of and sees it everywhere, even in himself and his family. Resolute in his belief that the Creator has deemed that humanity’s sin and evil is too great to allow its continued existence on Earth, Noah’s convictions lead him to some truly dark and unsettling territory. From his determination to let countless fellow human beings die to depriving his sons from the opportunity to have children or a future, Russell Crowe’s Noah is a tortured man whose torment is made all the more acute by the battle within him between the love for his children and his sense of duty and responsibility to the Creator.
And interwoven within the film is a contemporary message of warning as Aronofsky utilizes the allegorical power of the tale to get us thinking about the legacy of the human race and our effects on our planet and on each other. The great success of this film is in finding the timeless and prescient characteristics of its source material that are the chief reasons behind why it’s been around for such a long time. The story of Noah is about the evil of man and man’s struggle with his own evil nature, and that’s exactly what is most fascinating about this movie. Imagine a man in Noah’s position, a person who has seen the ugliness in himself and others and struggles to find the goodness in the human race, especially when sin is what appears to define our lives and our existence as human beings.
This sin is personified in the film by Tubal-cain (Ray Winstone in a great performance), the King of a tribe of evil and capricious men. Tubal-cain captures all the self-destructive flaws of man in a nutshell: here is a man who only understands and sees the world in one way: the way he believes the Creator has made it. It's a struggle for survival, it is a world where one must take what he wants and use any means necessary; it must be this way and Tubal-cain’s way must be right. Why must man be punished when he has been given dominion over this world and when he is made in the Creator’s own image? By showing us the seduction of Noah’s middle son Shem at the hands of Tubal-cain and the darkness within Noah himself, the film explores how easy it is to let our harmful tendencies prevail, whether it’s self-preservation over altruism, greed over generosity, or simply strength over weakness. Embedded within us are the seeds of our own destruction, and armed with that knowledge, do we forsake ourselves, or do we find something to make our continued existence worthwhile? In a pivotal moment in the film, with the fate of the world hanging in the balance, Noah gets his answer and with it, he finds man’s redemption and an unassailable hope for a better future.
Verdict: Featuring a Russell Crowe performance that is worth the price of admission on its own, Darren Aronofsky’s Noah takes one of the oldest stories ever told and successfully gives it a contemporary tone and message. That being said, Aronofsky’s most ambitious (and expensive) project to date is an uneven film that could have lost at least half an hour on the cutting room floor.
B
Trailer:
Movie info:
Runtime:138 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Cast: Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Ray Winstone, Emma Watson
Director: Darren Aronofsky
Screenplay: Darren Aronofsky, Ari Handel
Cinematography: Matthew Libatique
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