Mary, Mother of Jesus (1999)

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 and tests of faith, from the time when she is terrified to meet the messenger of God who foretells the birth of the Messiah to her witnessing the brutal scene of her son's crucifixion. As the movie deals with material that will, of course, be familiar to most viewers, an unavoidable problem is that there are few surprises, and while the script does attempt to fill in some nuances of Mary's life, at times the dramatic portrayals can't help but seem forced. Mary, Mother of Jesus was obviously a labor of love by the executive producers, Eunice Kennedy Shriver and her son Bobby Shriver, and while it may not always succeed dramatically, the story is told coherently and some viewers will find it an inspirational paean to a revered religious figure. --Robert J. McNamara Amazon.com

The Gospel According to Mary

Implementing an admirably brisk pace, and sporting some exciting crowd and chase scenes, 'Mary, Mother of Jesus' has an instant appeal. Keeping close to scripture in key portions of Mary's and Jesus' lives, the film, nevertheless, may bring controversy with some of the fill-in interpretational moments. With good performances all around, especially Pernilla August in the title role and Christian Bale as the grown Jesus, the movie, however, presents a Mary that's a little more outspoken and fiesty than we're accustomed to. (Sometimes I had to wince when Mary teaches Jesus the "Good Samaritan" story and her protest against a stoning of an adulterer before Jesus is born. Yet, the Bible does state that Jesus "increased in wisdom and in stature..." He did learn things.) Also, John the Baptist seems fiery and folksy enough to bring a genuine translation (one of the best performances in memory of him), and Judy Cornwell as the Innkeeper's wife (Judy Cornwell) provides some comic relief with her robust performance. The details are also worthy. The scenery provides a simple beauty that never brings a stage presence to the film.

Just as 'The Robe' surmises the Jesus story from the point-of-view of a convert after the repurcussions of Jesus's ordeal, 'Mary,...' provides another portrait of the gospel as witnessed by a key participant in Jesus's life. March 8, 2007

Christian Bale bails Christians

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. February 6, 2007

Excellent Production

Top quality product, well produced, will enjoy watching again and again. Thanks Barbara January 9, 2007

Good effort

It must be a very daunting task to try and flesh out a part on somebody who played such a major part in mankind's salvation with her humble assent to be the mother of the Messiah when her scriptural refrences are so few other than during the Nativity and early childhood of Jesus. So many times the writers get in the way of the story rather than let it play out in it's natural order. I feel the writers in this movie really tried to be true to the scripture that inspired it, but it can be so easy to stray from the spirit of what needs to be told when trying to flesh out characters, storylines, etc. The salavation story of Jesus and the part Mary played in it is so huge that trying to compress it into the short time required by this movie is almost impossible. Even the best movie ever done on Christ, "Jesus of Nazareth" was a 6 hour movie and it couldn't encompass everything either. That said, I did enjoy most of this film's attempt at widening our filmic knowledge of our Blessed Mother and, shortcomings aside, I'd still rather watch this than 90% of the drudge coming out of Hollywood today. January 9, 2007

Quite Unbiblical

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). July 7, 2006

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