You’ve seen Jesus on the big screen before, but you haven’t seen his story told from the point of view of “Mary Magdalene.” Rooney Mara takes the titular role in this prestige-y Bible movie, that also features Joaquin Phoenix playing Big J himself. Add to that Garth Davis (“Lion,” “Top Of The Lake“) behind the camera, and score contributions by Jóhann Jóhannsson and this should be slam dunk. However, critics were mixed with their blessings.
The film opens overseas next month, but the embargo is up, and reviews are fairly mixed. The film apparently lands in that weird space of not having enough dramatic conviction, while also not pushing too hard against traditional beliefs to offend anybody. The result is a movie that doesn’t quite work.
If you’re curious to see it yourself, you may have to wait a while. There is no stateside distribution for “Mary Magdalene,” as the movie is caught up in the bankruptcy tangle of The Weinstein Company, so who knows if or when it’ll be purchased and released. I have a feeling it’ll go straight to streaming or VOD on this side of the pond, but not anytime soon. Here’s how the critics weighed in on “Mary Magdalene”:
Variety: “Hushed, deliberate and realised with considerable care and beauty, the resulting film has its heart entirely in the right place; its pulse, unfortunately, is far harder to locate.”
THR: ” ‘Mary Magdalene’ is an uneasy viewing experience, ponderous and disjointed in places, but also crafted with conviction and a strong aesthetic vision.”
Entertainment Ireland: “It’s difficult to say how well a movie based around religion will do in the modern day, but if you open yourself up to it, ‘Mary Magdalene’ is rewarding on many levels.”
Indiewire: “As Godly spectacle, the film is too introverted to be overwhelming: in place of miracles and wonders, we get pauses and shuffles. Everything ‘Lion’ made transporting and otherwise moving – the sense of youth finding its chosen place in the world – turns repetitious and uninvolving in the draggy second act.”
The Guardian: “This movie, from screenwriters Helen Edmundson and Philippa Goslett and director Garth Davis, sets itself a bold task: to rescue Mary Magdalene from an age-old tradition of patriarchal condescension and misinterpretation. And yet it winds up embracing a solemn, softly-spoken and slow-moving Christian piety of its own.”
Screen Daily: “On viewing this clearly well-intentioned, attractive, wistful-to-the-point-of-inertia film, it’s easy enough to see why Mary Magdalene has languished: if it’s not exactly a hot-ticket for the Catholic faithful, neither is it something the arthouse might yearn to see.”
The Wrap: “Other than to show that a woman called Mary who wasn’t a prostitute was involved in the final weeks of the Jesus story, I have no idea what the filmmakers wanted for this project. I’m pretty sure they didn’t achieve it.”
