‘The Carpenter’s Son’ Review

Stars: Nicolas Cage, Noah Jupe, FKA Twigs, Isla Johnston, Souheila Yacoub, Pinelopi Markopoulos, Orestis Paliadelis, Elena Topalidou, Manolis Mavaromatakis | Written and Directed by Lofty Nathan

Nicolas Cage stars as Jesus’ adoptive father Joseph in The Carpenter’s Son, a mix of Biblical drama, coming-of-age movie and religious horror from Egypt-born, British-raised writer-director Lofty Nathan. Unfortunately, the film can’t quite reconcile its various elements, and it ends up feeling very uneven as a result.

Loosely based on the Infancy Gospel of Thomas (essentially bits of the Bible that were left out of the New Testament), the film begins with the Virgin birth, after which Mary (FKA Twigs) and Joseph (Cage) – though they are never named as such – flee Bethlehem, narrowly avoiding various bonfires, onto which newborn babies are being thrown, in the first of the film’s occasional forays into abject horror. Cut to 15 years later, 15 AD, where Joseph and Mary are living anonymously in a small community, raising Jesus (Noah Jupe), who is now 15 years old.

Somewhat amusingly, this part of the movie plays like Joseph and Mary are in Witness Protection, trying to settle quietly into a new community without drawing any attention to themselves. So it’s something of a problem when young Jesus discovers he’s able to cure the sick, after a mysterious young woman (Isla Johnston as The Stranger) “playfully” pushes him onto a leper.

Thereafter, Jesus is drawn to his beautiful, mute neighbour Lilith (Souheila Yacoub), but his attentions only create trouble for her and her mother (Pinelopi Markopoulos). Meanwhile The Stranger appears to know an awful lot about Jesus’ background and keeps pressuring the boy to ask his dad about his real father.

The Carpenter’s Son‘s biggest problem is that it can never quite decide which story it wants to tell, and there are frequent, jarring clashes of tone as a result. For example, at one point Jesus is secretly watching Lilith shower naked, and it looks as if the film might attempt an intriguingly subversive coming-of-age story, but that element quickly gets dropped.

There’s a similar issue with Nic Cage’s performance. The cult actor’s performances can broadly be divided into Good Cage (where he really puts the effort in, something like Leaving Las Vegas), Good Bad Cage (where he goes wildly over the top and the film ends up being fun regardless of how awful it is, like The Wicker Man) and Bad Bad Cage, where he puts no effort in whatsoever.

With The Carpenter’s Son it’s an uneven mixture of Good Cage, where he’s trying to do a serious performance as Joseph, with the weight of the world on his shoulders, accentuated by lots of frowning, and Good Bad Cage, where he puts his trademarked tortured inflections on anguished lines like, “My faith has become a broken crutch!” It’s intermittently fun, but it’s also like he was instructed to play each scene two different ways and Nathan just mixed and matched the different takes afterwards.

On the plus side, British actor Jupe does a decent job as Jesus, giving him interesting layers that range from stroppy teenager to compassionate healer, and imbuing him with a palpable curiosity about the world. There’s also strong work from Johnson, delivering a charismatic and intense performance that stays with you – it comes as no surprise to learn that she’ll soon be playing Joan of Arc in an upcoming film, so expect her star to rise accordingly.

Sadly, FKA Twigs gets rather short shrift in the performance department, as she’s only required to play a single note throughout – basically, “saintly concern” – and consequently, all her scenes are rather dull.

The final act of the film lurches into more overt horror as Jesus meets a certain figure (the film is almost worth seeing just for the way Cage pronounces Satan “SatAHHHHN”) and various snakes and creepy figures are involved as the film attempts what is meant to be the temptation in the desert. However, the movie’s tonal problems are still very much in evidence, and it lurches back and forth between serious religious drama and supernatural horror, with neither element really landing.

In short, The Carpenter’s Son is something of a curiosity, and as such, it could either end up getting totally forgotten (a non-Easter release isn’t doing it any favours) or it might become a cult favourite, with people shouting lines at the screen. It’s not quite so-bad-it’s-good, but it’s not unwatchable either. Worth a look.

** 2/5

The Carpenter’s Son is in cinemas now.