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April 12, 2019 // Perspective

Movie reviews from the usccb.

‘The Best of Enemies’

NEW YORK (CNS) — “The Best of Enemies” (STX) is an appealing fact-based drama that promotes humane values and Gospel-guided behavior. On that basis, many parents may consider it a rewarding film for older teens, the inclusion of some mature material notwithstanding.

Set in 1971 Durham, North Carolina, writer-director Robin Bissell’s adaptation of Osha Gray Davidson’s 1996 book — subtitled “Race and Redemption in the New South” — traces the evolving relationship between no-nonsense civil rights activist Ann Atwater (Taraji P. Henson) and C.P. Ellis (Sam Rockwell), the head of the local Ku Klux Klan.

The two, who initially want nothing to do with each other, are forced to spend time together as leading participants in an arbitration process deciding the future of the city’s still-segregated educational system. A damaging fire at a black school has brought the issue to a head and Bill Riddick (Babou Ceesay), an expert in mediation, has been brought in to try to achieve consensus.

He sets up a series of meetings collectively called a charette, at the end of which a panel made up of an equal number of blacks and whites will vote on whether to maintain the status quo. As the process unfolds, Ann and C.P. gain insights into each other’s lives and characters.

C.P. begins to question his racist views — which are based, in part at least, on the fact that he has always avoided having any dealings with African Americans. The gas station he owns, for example, will not serve black customers.

For her part, fiery Ann comes to see that C.P. is not entirely evil. In fact, in some respects, he’s quite vulnerable.

This is particularly true with regard to one of his three sons, a developmentally disabled lad confined to a home for whom C.P. cannot afford the kind of care he would like. Ann, who carries a Bible with her and says grace before each meal, intervenes with a friend on the staff of the facility where the boy lives to bring about an improvement in his situation.

Though C.P. at first reacts to this thoughtful gesture with disdain, not wanting to be indebted to Ann in any way, in the long term it becomes an important turning point in the evolution of his outlook. His gradual change of heart, which will ultimately have very positive consequences, also is encouraged by his sensible wife, Mary (Anne Heche).

Bissell evokes strong performances from his fine cast and his picture’s themes of reconciliation and equal dignity for all will be on target for believing moviegoers. The story he tells might seem pat if it were not derived from real events. As it is, viewers can come away from “The Best of Enemies” hopeful, despite the many fraught and contentious circumstances of our own era.

The film contains some nongraphic violence, including gunplay and the threat of rape, an act of sexual aggression, a few uses of profanity and of crude and crass language and racial slurs. The Catholic News Service classification is A-III — adults. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG-13 — parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.

John Mulderig is on the staff of Catholic News Service.

“Dumbo” (Disney)

Lush but insubstantial live-action reimagining of the 1941 animated classic, set in 1919, in which the young elephant of the title becomes a pawn in a struggle to profit from the fact that his outsized ears enable him to fly. Out to protect him are a wounded and recently widowed World War I veteran (Colin Farrell), his two children (Nico Parker and Finley Hobbins) and the manager (Danny DeVito) of the circus for which he works. The owner (Michael Keaton) of a lavish amusement park has more devious ideas which are not necessarily shared by his amiable girlfriend (Eva Green). Director Tim Burton brings visual flair to screenwriter Ehren Kruger’s story but the impression it leaves is less than lasting while constant peril, the mistreatment of animals and several sad plot developments make this too challenging for little kids. Characters in danger, cruelty to animals. The Catholic News Service classification is A-II ­— adults and adolescents. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG — parental guidance suggested. Some material may not be suitable for children.

“Shazam!” (Warner Bros.)

Endowed by a wizard (Djimon Hounsou) with the ability to transform himself, by dint of the titular exclamation, into a superhero with the body of an adult (Zachary Levi), a 14-year-old foster child (Asher Angel) does battle with a formidable villain (Mark Strong) who wants the lad to surrender his newfound powers to him. Though it eventually becomes almost exclusively an action picture, director David F. Sandberg’s DC Comics-based origin story begins with an enjoyable overlay of comedy as the protagonist and his physically challenged best friend (Jack Dylan Grazer) marvel at his ability to shoot electricity from his hands and perform similar nifty stunts. Family life is exalted over egotistical self-reliance as Angel’s character learns to use his gifts responsibly, and viewers of faith will appreciate brief scenes of prayer and an implicitly pro-life message about the dignity of the disabled. Some mischief enabled by the main character’s grown-up guise, however, makes this questionable fare even for older teens. Much stylized violence with a few gruesome sights, underage drinking, brief sexual humor, some of it involving a strip club, at least one use of profanity and a milder oath, about a dozen crude and crass terms. The Catholic News Service classification is A-III — adults. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG-13 — parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.

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The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting Film Classifications

Where applicable, the Decent Films Guide provides classifications assigned to films by the Office of Film and Broadcasting of the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops . USCCB classifications for films not covered by the Decent Films Guide can be found at the USCCB Office of Film and Broadcasting website , or at Catholic News Service’s movies page .

The USCCB classifications, although less familiar than the MPAA ratings , are much more valuable for assessing a film’s moral and spiritual significance. Instead of merely keeping tabs on the levels of sex, violence, and coarse language in a film, the USCCB Office of Film and Broadcasting “evaluates films for artistic merit and moral suitability” using the following classifications:

A-I – General patronage

A-ii – adults and adolescents, a-iii – adults, l – limited adult audience.

According to the USCCB website, this classification designates “films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling. L replaces the previous classification, A-IV.”

O – Morally offensive

These classifications come with content advisory information summarizing the rationale for the classification (e.g., “some violence and sexual innuendo…”), as well as full-length and capsule reviews for an extensive library of reviews encompassing thousands of films from all decades of cinema. The sheer breadth of coverage now available at the USCCB website makes it one of the most reliably useful online resources for gauging the potential interest level for unfamiliar films.

The Office for Film and Broadcasting has the distinction of being an authorized agency of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Classifications are assigned by lay professionals, not bishops, and individual film ratings have no authoritative or disciplinary status. Still, the Office for Film and Broadcasting represents an exercise of pastoral and social action on the part of the US bishops, and it is appropriate for Catholics to avail themselves of this resource.

Beyond this, the classifications themselves, and the criteria informing them, provide morally and spiritually relevant information that should be of interest to non-Catholic as well as Catholic Christians. In general, the reviews tend to be professional and savvy, and show critical acumen as well as moral insight.

It is worth noting that the USCCB reviews are the work of many different critics writing at different times, and on the USCCB site these reviews are not signed (though reviews at Catholic News Service’s movies page do display bylines with the writer’s name). Thus, these reviews reflect a variety of approaches and standards that are not always self-consistent.

Perhaps the most significant limitation of the USCCB’s age-based classifications system is that it makes no distinction between positively worthwhile content and merely acceptable or permissible content (that is, content that merely avoids giving offense). A film that has little artistic, entertainment, or moral and spiritual value can get the same rating as the best moral drama, provided only that it avoids objectionable content. Of course, the reviews provide information on whatever positive merits a film may have; but there is no index of such merit in the classifications system, and no way to use the rating to seek out more worthwhile films.

For more about the ratings used by the Decent Films Guide , see the main ratings page . Or see the reviews page to browse reviews by any ratings criterion.

Recent movies reviewed on the basis of moral suitability

Photo Caption: Amy Adams and Henry Cavill star in a scene from the movie “Man of Steel.” The Catholic News Service classification is A-III — adults. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG-13.

The following movie reviews are supplied by Catholic News Service in conjunction with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Office of Film and Broadcasting.

For full reviews of these films, as well as earlier releases, visit the CNS movie site here .

This list will be updated regularly, and all reviews are copyright (c) 2013 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

—–

“The Bling Ring” (A24 Films)

The Catholic News Service classification is O — morally offensive. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is R — restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.

Disturbing fact-based account of a gang of high school students who targeted their favorite stars and burgled the celebrities’ homes, stealing clothing, jewelry, and cash to fill their own closets and pockets. Five teens (Israel Broussard, Katie Chang, Emma Watson, Taissa Farmiga and Claire Julien) crave the A-list lifestyle, and so decide to steal the expensive accoutrements that go along with it. They rely on tabloid reports to tell them who’s out of town — then descend on empty mansions like locusts. Writer-director Sofia Coppola withholds judgment on the youngsters’ actions and winds up glamorizing a rootless, immoral — not to mention criminal — lifestyle. A benign attitude toward stealing, pervasive drug use and underage drinking, occasional profane and crude language.

“Monsters University” (Disney)

The Catholic News Service classification is A-I — general patronage. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is G — general audiences. All ages admitted.

This 3-D animated prequel to the 2001 hit “Monsters, Inc.,” directed by Dan Scanlon, features a hilarious sendup of college life. It also reinforces familiar but important messages for young people (and their parents): Make friends, study hard, and apply your unique talents for the greater good. Two best pals (voices of Billy Crystal and John Goodman) were not, it seems, always so fond of one another. Years before the action of the earlier movie, they met in college, locked horns, and were dismissed from the elite program in which they had enrolled by the institution’s stern dean (voice of Helen Mirren). Joining forces with a misfit fraternity, they must learn to work together to achieve their goal of being readmitted. The movie is preceded by a charming short film, “The Blue Umbrella,” about love among parasols. Both are clean and wholesome fun for the entire family.

“World War Z” (Paramount)

The Catholic News Service classification is A-III — adults. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG-13 — parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.

Zombies swarm the planet, and a United Nations troubleshooter (Brad Pitt) learns that the only defenses are guns, knives, duct tape and perhaps a vaccine. Loose adaptation of Max Brooks’ novel by director Marc Foster and screenwriters Matthew Michael Carnahan, Drew Goddard and Damon Lindelof respectfully observes all the cliches of the zombie/pandemic genres without much gore, possibly because there are thousands upon thousands of zombies to shoot at, blow up, or hit with flamethrowers. Gun and physical violence, fleeting crude language. Possibly acceptable for older teens.

“Man of Steel” (Warner Bros.)

Action adventure recounting the life of iconic comic book hero Superman (Henry Cavill). Born on distant Krypton, as an infant his parents (Russell Crowe and Ayelet Zurer) send him to Earth so that he can escape his doomed home planet’s imminent destruction. His adoptive human parents (Kevin Costner and Diane Lane) instill positive values and try to protect his secret. But, once grown, an investigative reporter (Amy Adams) is on the verge of disclosing his true identity when an old enemy (Michael Shannon) of his father’s arrives from space and threatens humanity with annihilation unless Superman surrenders. Director Zack Snyder’s take on the familiar narrative has the makings of an engaging drama and includes Christian themes and an anti-eugenics message that viewers of faith in particular can appreciate. But this positive potential is squandered in favor of endless scenes of high-powered brawling and the pyrotechnics of innumerable explosions. Much intense but bloodless violence, a fleeting sexual advance, occasional crude and crass language.

“”This Is the End” (Columbia)

Tedious comedy in which an ensemble of actors playing themselves (most prominently James Franco, Jonah Hill, Seth Rogen — who directed, with Evan Goldberg — and Jay Baruchel) are holed up in a Los Angeles mansion during the Apocalypse. Rogen and Goldberg, who also wrote the script, celebrate altruism and loyal friendship. But no other virtue dividing those caught up in the rapture from those left behind seems comprehensible to them, certainly not moderation in the pursuit of worldly pleasures. As for their treatment of matters religious, it might best be described as frivolous affirmation. Comic treatment of sacred subjects, scenes of gruesome bloody violence, strong sexual content including a graphic glimpse of aberrant sexual activity with rear nudity, a benign view of drug use, much sexual and some scatological humor, occasional instances of profanity, pervasive rough and crude language.

“The Internship” (Fox)

The Catholic News Service classification is L — limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG-13 — parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.

When two middle-aged watch salesmen (Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson) suddenly find themselves unemployed — and with nothing to show for their years of enthusiastic peddling — they apply to the internship program at corporate giant Google, a domain dominated by tech-savvy college-age kids. Director Shawn Levy, working from a script co-written by Vaughn, strains to wring laughs from the generational and cultural divides. But humor and inventiveness are in short supply in this predictable comedy, while a topical message concerning the virtues of adaptability and perseverance in difficult economic times is canceled out by a stream of vulgarity and off-color references. An implied nonmarital encounter, several uses of profanity, at least one rough term, frequent crude and crass language, considerable innuendo, passing approval of a same-sex relationship.

“The Purge” (Universal)

Set in a dystopian future America during the one night each year when any crime may be committed with impunity, writer-director James DeMonaco’s thriller — a potentially challenging study of the conflict between lifeboat ethics and personal decency — degenerates into an orgy of the very violence it sets out to question. When the chosen target (Edwin Hodge) of a bloodthirsty mob (led by Rhys Wakefield) manages to take refuge in the home of a security specialist (Ethan Hawke), his presence threatens to bring the wrath of the gang down on the whole family (including wife Lena Headey and kids Max Burkholder and Adelaide Kane) unless they give the fugitive up to his pursuers. Inept social commentary — the victim is a homeless black veteran, the marauders are crazed preppies — and pointless religious overtones hobble the proceedings even before the gore goes off the charts. Excessive graphic violence, including torture, a scene of underage sensuality, a few uses of profanity and of rough language, a couple of crass terms.

Frances Ha” (IFC)

The Catholic News Service classification is L — limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is R — restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.

When her best friend and roommate (Mickey Sumner) decides to move out, the eponymous heroine (Greta Gerwig) — a feckless 27-year-old New Yorker — is cast adrift, suddenly homeless with no real job and few prospects. Not that this especially bothers her, as she flits from party to party — and from drama to drama — dispensing empty commentary on her own life and unintelligible advice to others. As she waits for her life to happen, and wallows in self-absorption, the proceedings are shot by director and co-writer (with Gerwig) Noah Baumbach in black-and-white, casting Gotham in a warm and fuzzy glow. Cohabitation, frequent sex talk, many uses of profanity, much crude language.

“Now You See Me” (Summit)

A quartet of professional magicians (Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco and Isla Fisher) is caught in a high-stakes game of cat and mouse in this entertaining caper film directed by Louis Leterrier. Brought together by a mysterious capitalist (Michael Caine), the four become a world-famous act. But one outrageous stunt they manage to pull off — a long-distance and very public bank robbery — attracts the attention of an FBI agent (Mark Ruffalo), his Interpol counterpart (Melanie Laurent) and a reality show host (Morgan Freeman) whose mission is to expose the secrets of the trade. Though it contains a slightly disturbing pagan element, in the end, Leterrier’s film is a harmless and witty romp for grown-ups, yet one that lingers in the memory no longer than the time required to shout, “Abracadabra!” Mild action violence, a vulgar gesture, sexual innuendo, some crude and profane language.

After Earth” (Columbia)

Grueling sci-fi adventure set 1,000 years after humans have been forced to evacuate an environmentally despoiled Earth. While on an intergalactic military mission, a general (Will Smith) and his teen son — played by Smith’s real-life son Jaden — become the sole survivors of a crash landing on the Blue Planet. With Dad temporarily disabled as a result, the lad must brave a hostile array of predators in order to reach the other part of their wrecked spacecraft — and the signal beam that represents their only hope of rescue. While the filial relationship at the heart of director and co-writer M. Night Shyamalan’s plodding coming-of-age drama is ultimately characterized by self-sacrificing love, the code by which the father lives — and which he strives to instill in his offspring — seems to have more in common with Zen Buddhism than with the values promoted in Scripture. The script’s glib portrayal of the bonds uniting veterans will also strike at least some viewers as either jingoistic or exploitative. Much action violence, some of it bloody, gory medical images, a stifled crude term, a few mildly crass expressions.

“Epic” (Fox)

The Catholic News Service classification is A-I — general patronage. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG — parental guidance suggested. Some material may not be suitable for children.

Pleasant 3-D animated fantasy in which a 17-year-old girl (voice of Amanda Seyfried) finds herself magically transported to a miniature world within nature where the champions of growth and life (their leader voiced by Colin Farrell) battle the dark forces of decay (their commander voiced by Christoph Waltz). While becoming caught up in the conflict, she falls for a youthful warrior (voice of Josh Hutcherson) whose freewheeling ways make him an initially unreliable ally for his fellow good guys. With some of its characters drawn from William Joyce’s book “The Leaf Men and the Brave Good Bugs,” director Chris Wedge’s cheerful journey into the undergrowth sends innocuous messages about environmental stewardship, teamwork and responsibility. There’s also some familial bonding via the protagonist’s ultimately appreciative interaction with her stereotypically absent-minded professor of a dad (voiced by Jason Sudeikis). Though the impact falls well short of Wedge’s overly ambitious title, some lovely imagery compensates for various hit-or-miss attempts at humor. Potentially frightening clashes, themes involving death.

“The Reluctant Fundamentalist” (IFC)

The Catholic News Service classification is A-III — adults. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is R — restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.

A thought-provoking — yet flawed — exploration of the wide-ranging impact of the 9/11 terrorist attacks both on individuals and on whole cultures. In 2011 Pakistan, a journalist (Liev Schreiber) has been recruited by the CIA to interview the chief suspect (Riz Ahmed) in the kidnapping of an American professor. Things may not be as they appear, however, as the self-professedly peace-loving radical recounts his experiences in the United States — including his meteoric rise to the top within a wicked corporation (run by Kiefer Sutherland), his romance with a bohemian artist (Kate Hudson), and his fall from corporate grace as a result of post-Twin Towers discrimination. Working from the novel by Mohsin Hamid, director Mira Nair lets the audience pass judgment, for better or worse. The result is an absorbing story with a flawed conclusion — one that seems to prioritize the force of circumstance over conscience when choosing between good and evil. Fleeting action violence and gunplay, a gruesome image, brief sensuality, some profane and crass language.

“Star Trek Into Darkness” (Paramount)

Snappy follow-up to director J.J. Abrams’ 2009 reboot of — and prequel to — the long-lived sci-fi franchise that stretches back to 1960s television. In this second chronicle of their early professional lives, dynamic, impetuous Capt. Kirk (Chris Pine) and his seemingly emotionless half-Vulcan, half-human first officer Spock (Zachary Quinto) lead their intrepid crew on a high-stakes, sometimes morally fraught crusade against an intergalactic terrorist (Benedict Cumberbatch). The fundamental message of Abrams’ spectacular adventure — a warning against employing immoral means to overcome evil — is both scripturally resonant and timely. But the parents of teen Trekkies will need to weigh the profit of that lesson against the debit of some sensual imagery and vulgar talk. Possibly acceptable for older adolescents. Much bloodless battling but also occasional harsh violence, some sexual content — including a trio glimpsed waking up together and scenes with skimpy costuming — a few uses of crude language, a half-dozen crass terms.

“Fast & Furious 6” (Universal)

Lured by the promise of pardons for their past misdeeds, a crew of law-flouting underground car racers — led by Vin Diesel and Paul Walker — reassemble to help a federal agent (Dwayne Johnson) thwart the civilization-threatening schemes of a criminal mastermind (Luke Evans) who uses hotrods to speed his heists of top-secret military equipment. The fact that the gangster’s number two (Michelle Rodriguez) is Diesel’s not-dead-after-all love interest is another draw. Director Justin Lin’s barroom brawl of a movie features well-orchestrated chases, and softens the tone of its grunting machismo with the occasional flourish of vague religiosity. But the self-determined code which its heroes substitute for civil obedience is morally dubious and certainly not for the impressionable. Murky moral values, considerable stylized violence including a scene of torture, cohabitation, partial nudity, a few uses of profanity, at least one rough term, much crude and crass language, an obscene gesture.

“The Hangover Part III” (Warner Bros.)

On its surface, this is a defanged, declawed version of the first two “Hangover” installments with no sex, no alcohol or drug abuse and almost no nudity. Director Todd Phillips, who co-wrote with Craig Mazin, focuses the plot on the long-overdue maturation of a spoiled rich boy (Zach Galifianakis), a process in which two of his friends (Bradley Cooper and Ed Helms) try to assist by transporting their unstable pal to a mental health facility in Arizona. En route, the trio is waylaid by a gangster (John Goodman) who wants them to help him retrieve stolen loot purloined by an archcriminal (Ken Jeong). While the shenanigans that made the earlier entries repellent may mercifully be absent, there’s a different, deeper — and philosophically, at least, potentially more troubling — recklessness at work in this picture. In the inkiest vein of nihilistic black humor, the frequent intrusion of death — whether that of disposable animals or of equally disposable people — is presented as a cue for guffaws. Stylized gun violence, a fleeting glimpse of frontal male nudity, a brief but vulgar reference to sexual activity, some profanity, pervasive rough and crude language.

“The Great Gatsby” (Warner Bros.)

Splashy, sometimes cartoonish 3-D adaptation of the classic 1925 novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Narrator Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire), scion of the WASP establishment, recounts his friendship with the iconic self-made man and would-be social insider Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio) whose obsessive love for Nick’s alluring but married cousin Daisy Buchanan (Carey Mulligan) leads first to adultery, then to a confrontation with Daisy’s caddish husband Tom (Joel Edgerton) and finally to tragedy. As director and co-writer Baz Luhrmann revels in the frenzied decadence of Gatsby’s Jazz Age party-giving, he creates a fable-like setting that distances viewers from Fitzgerald’s characters and lessens the impact of their downfall. His film also tends to glamorize the sinful relationship at the heart of the story, suggesting that an unpleasant spouse and the inherent superiority of the illicit lovers — who initially fell for each other before Daisy’s marriage — are reason enough to ignore the Sixth Commandment. Scenes of both lethal and nonlethal violence with minimal gore, an uncritical view of adultery, brief semi-graphic adulterous activity as well as some other sexual content, a glimpse of partial nudity, a few uses of profanity, a couple of crude terms, a religious slur.

See the full CNS review at CNS Reviews .

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U.S. Bishops Withdraw Controversial Movie Review

Many Catholics — including several bishops — reacted strongly to a positive review the bishops conference’s film office gave to The Golden Compass. The film office withdrew its review.

WASHINGTON — Just days after The Golden Compass opened to less than stellar box office numbers, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops unexpectedly withdrew its review of the film, which had been posted online and published in diocesan newspapers.

This came following an outcry among Catholic faithful and bishops over New Line Cinema’s use of the review as an endorsement for the controversial film.

The review was written by Harry Forbes and John Mulderig, the director and staff reviewer of the Office for Film and Broadcasting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The review had been released and posted on the Catholic News Service (CNS) website Nov. 29. CNS is a news affiliate of the U.S. bishops’ conference.

Their review described the film as “an exciting adventure story with, at its core, a traditional struggle between good and evil, and a generalized rejection of authoritarianism.”

“For now,” the piece read, “this film — altered, as it is, from its source material — rates as intelligent and well-crafted entertainment.”

The review drew considerable criticism from Catholic writers, parents and bloggers.

“I thought the USCCB’s rave review of The Golden Compass was remarkably short-sighted,” wrote award-winning writer Jeffrey Overstreet, author of Through a Screen Darkly, on his blog Looking Closer. “It was especially painful to see that rave gleefully snapped up by New Line’s publicity department and employed in promotions of the film, suggesting that the movie contains nothing that should concern Christian moviegoers.”

“Since CNS is a distributor of media reviews of the Office for Film and Broadcasting, it must respect the office’s withdrawal of its review,” said a Dec. 11 CNS press release about the withdrawal. “Effective Dec. 10, the review of The Golden Compass will not be available on the CNS web site. It will not be included in subsequent listings of USCCB film reviews and classifications.”

Neither Forbes nor the bishops’ conference were willing to comment on the reason for the withdrawal.

The conference’s Communications Office referred the Register to the Office for Film and Broadcasting. That office in turn referred inquiries to the U.S. bishops’ conference.

“I think, on this point, your best bet would be to call our PR head, Sister Mary Ann Walsh, at our D.C. headquarters,” Forbes said via e-mail. “It [the review] was removed without comment, even internally.”

Repeated e-mails and telephone calls to Sister Mary Ann were not returned.

However, it wasn’t only the blogosphere that criticized the film and its review. Several bishops did so as well.Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput, who saw the movie on Dec. 8, described it as a “bad film.”

“The aggressively anti-religious, anti-Christian undercurrent in The Golden Compass is unmistakable and at times undisguised,” Archbishop Chaput wrote in a column in the Dec. 12 issue of the Denver Catholic Register. “The wicked Mrs. Coulter alludes approvingly to a fictional version of the doctrine of original sin. When a warrior Ice Bear — one of the heroes of the story — breaks into the local Magisterium headquarters to take back the armor stolen from him, the exterior walls of the evil building are covered with Eastern Christian icons. And for Catholics in our own world, of course, ‘Magisterium’ refers to the teaching authority of the Church — hardly a literary coincidence.”

Commenting on the Office for Film and Broadcasting’s review itself, Archbishop Chaput said, “The idea that any Christian film critics could overlook or downplay these negative elements, as some have seemed to do, is simply baffling.”

New Orleans Archbishop Alfred Hughes and Baltimore Archbishop Edwin O’Brien also warned about the film.

“The Archdiocese of Baltimore is grateful that the conference withdrew the review because it caused much confusion in the Catholic community,” said Archbishop O’Brien. “From all reports, the review failed to adequately warn parents about the movie’s widely recognized dark themes and anti-Catholic imagery.”

La Crosse, Wis., Bishop Jerome Listecki instructed priests of his diocese to warn the faithful against the film. Bishop Gregory Aymond of Austin, Texas, said that Catholic schools should not have the books in their libraries.

While it’s uncertain exactly why the review was withdrawn most seem to think it had to do with how New Line Cinema excerpted material from the review to create ads that made it look as if the U.S. bishops’ conference was endorsing the film.

The first ad read: “An exciting adventure story, entirely in harmony with Catholic teaching — U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.” After receiving complaints, New Line changed the ad to read: “An exciting adventure story. Intelligent and well crafted — U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops,” and backed off on their plan to place the ad in diocesan newspapers.

Concerned Catholics said the fiasco is emblematic of the problems inherent in having a film review office financed by the U.S. bishops.

“Does the USCCB really need a film reviewing office?” asked Catholic writer Amy Welborn on her blog Charlotte Was Both. “I’d say no, not at all. As this experience has made clear, the bishops’ operation of a movie office runs the risk of implying Church support for a particular film.”

Many of those who denounced the film seemed pleased that the movie wasn’t performing nearly as well as studio executives had hoped.

Producers were disappointed that on opening weekend the film took in only $26.1 million. That’s low compared with the $47-$72 million grossed by The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and the $65 million grossed by The Chronicles of Narnia on their respective opening weekends.

Others have been surprised by the many positive adjustments that have come about as a result of the protests.

“First, New Line pulled their most offensive online advertisements (though they still made it to the newspapers),” wrote Thomas Peters, a Washington, D.C.-based lay Catholic who operates the American Papist blog. “Then they gave up on their efforts to have similar ads run in Catholic publications. Now the USCCB is removing the offensive review (instead of tinkering with it a la the Brokeback Mountain example). Let’s hope we haven’t seen the end of this little chain of victories.”

Tim Drake is based in

St. Joseph, Minnesota.

• Dec. 23, 2007 - Jan. 5, 2008

Tim Drake Tim Drake is an award-winning writer and former journalist and radio host with the Register. He resides with his wife and children in Minnesota.

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Catholic Bishops Revise Movie Ratings

by EthicsDaily.com Staff | Aug 19, 2003 | News

A new movie classification is forthcoming from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The conference’s Office for Film and Broadcasting announced Aug. 6 that one of its movie classifications—”A-IV: adults, with reservations”—will become “L: limited adult audience; films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling.”

The revised rating will take effect Nov. 1, according to the press release . Movies having previously earned the A-IV rating will receive the new L classification.

“With movies being more explicit these days in terms of violence, language, sexuality and themes, the designation ‘L—limited adult audience’ offers a more cautionary assessment than the previous ‘A-IV, adults, with reservations,’ which some interpreted as just slightly problematic but otherwise equivalent of a straightforward ‘A-III—adults’ classification,” said Gerri Paré, the office’s director, in the release.

The office currently applies five classifications to the movies it reviews:

• A-I—general  patronage;
• A-II—adults and adolescents;
• A-III—adults;
• A-IV—adults, with reservations (an A-IV classification designates problematic films that, while not morally offensive in themselves, require caution and some analysis and explanation as a safeguard against wrong interpretations and false conclusions);
• O—morally offensive.

“The revised designation is clearer,” Paré said. “While an ‘L’ film in not expressly ‘O—morally offensive,’ it is likely to contain material that many Catholics would find troublesome.”

The USCCB’s Office for Film and Broadcasting reviews mainstream movies “for moral suitability as well as technical and artistic considerations and assigns a moral classification to each,” according to the release.

Reviews are posted each week at the office’s Web site .

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The Catholic Film Critic: 18 Questions for Steven Greydanus

Steven D. Greydanus  is an American Catholic film critic who writes for the National Catholic Register and founded the website Decent Films in 2000. His reviews and essays also appear regularly in Crux and Catholic Digest. He has contributed to the  New Catholic Encyclopedia ; the  Encyclopedia of Catholic Social Thought, Social Science, and Social Policy;  Catholic World Report ;  Our Sunday Visitor ;  Image Journal ; and the  Office of Film and Broadcasting  of the  United States Conference of Catholic Bishops .

On television, Mr. Greydanus co-hosts the cable show “ Reel Faith ” ( NET TV ) with former USCCB critic David DiCerto. He’s been interviewed by  EWTN television , Vatican Radio, and NBC News.

Mr. Greydanus earned a BFA in Media Arts from the  School of Visual Arts  in New York and an MA in Religious Studies from  St. Charles Borromeo Seminary  in Overbrook, PA. As a candidate for the permanent diaconate in the Archdiocese of Newark, he’s currently pursuing an MA in Theology from  Immaculate Conception Seminary at Seton Hall University . Mr. Greydanus and his wife Suzanne have seven children.

On March 9, I interviewed Mr. Greydanus by email about the intersection of his faith and work.

The Decent Films website where you collect all of your reviews is subtitled "film appreciation and criticism informed by Christian faith." What does that mean for you?

Well, I wanted to strike a positive note, to start with—to emphasize that I write out of a love of film, not just a concern with moral content. Too much film writing by Christians is dominated by counting swear words or condemning bedroom scenes. Moral questions can never be set aside, but if we look at films only through the lens of the moralist, we’re going to miss nearly everything they have to offer us.

I also wanted to indicate that while I write as a Christian, and I bring my faith to what I do, I don’t write a special genre of "Christian film reviewing"—and I don’t see myself as writing only for Christians. I’ve benefited a great deal from film writers of other faiths, and of none. By the same token, my work is addressed to interested readers of all backgrounds. Over the years I’ve received gratifying feedback from atheists and agnostics as well as Jewish readers and other non-Christians.

Your reviews of major Hollywood films sometimes recall the style of the late Roger Ebert, whose essays were frequently infused with Catholic references and smart criticisms of Hollywood Catholicism informed by his own faith background. Some people might even suggest you have succeeded Ebert as a leading American Catholic voice on movies. In what way might that be true?

That’s so kind of you to say! But no one will ever succeed to Roger Ebert, certainly not me. He was as big a star as the actors he wrote about. Along with Gene Siskel, he pioneered a new kind of film criticism that was neither a journalistic beat nor a scholarly discipline, but a populist discussion that drew people in as much as the movies themselves.

It’s true but trivial to say that Ebert was an enormous influence on me and my work; the same is true of practically my whole generation of critics. I will say this: I was interested in writing long before I was interested in writing film criticism, and Ebert the writer has influenced me as much as, or more than, Ebert the critic.

The traces of Ebert’s Catholic heritage in his film writing were one thing I loved about his work. For viewers who suffered through some of the more misguided iterations of Hollywood Catholicism, his reviews could be downright cathartic. I try to do something similar in my work, in a more systematic and integral way, of course.

There’s a particular grading scheme on your website for judging films, but sometimes your reviews seem to prioritize the religious merit over the artistic quality of a film, or vice versa. In reviewing a Hollywood movie with explicit or implicit Christian themes, how do you navigate the tension between assessing it by its artistry and assessing it by its spiritual value?

Here’s where I start. Everyone recognizes that a movie can work well as a movie, yet have problematic or offensive implications. Take D. W. Griffith’s "The Birth of a Nation," released 100 years ago. It’s a masterfully made film that synthesizes all the cinematic advances of the early silent era—but it’s also a deeply racist document that inspired the second Ku Klux Klan.

Likewise, a film of modest artistic merits can be elevated by an edifying theme or topic. The Raúl Juliá biopic "Romero " is a well-made film, not a great film, but Archbishop Óscar Romero’s story is deeply inspiring, and comes across with sufficient power to elevate the film from merely decent to something I would recommend pretty highly.

There are limits. The most inspiring theme in the world can’t make a lame film worthwhile. Genuinely bad art is false art, however true the themes are. And sufficiently offensive moral themes can poison a film as entertainment or even as art.

My main rating is for recommendability. A movie I highly recommend, like "Sophie Scholl: The Final Days," gets an A; a movie I consider mediocre, like "Shrek the Third," gets a C; a movie I think is terrible and should be avoided at all costs, like "Transformers: Dark of the Moon," gets an F.

Then there are two supplementary ratings meant to offer an index of why I consider a movie recommendable or not. First I ask: “How well does the movie work? Does it deliver what it sets out to deliver in an aesthetically satisfying way?” My shorthand for that is “artistic–entertainment value,” and I gauge that with a star rating.

Second, there’s “moral–spiritual value,” which I rate on a scale of +4 to -4. So a movie I find deeply spiritual or edifying, like "Into Great Silence," gets a +4; a movie I find deeply objectionable or offensive, like "The Da Vinci Code," gets a -4. A zero rating is neutral.

In artistic–entertainment terms, I rated "Romero" 3 stars out of 4. But I gave it the highest moral-spiritual rating, +4. That +4 explains why "Romero" is an A- rather than a B, which, all things being equal, is what one might expect a 3-star movie to be.

I don’t pretend that there’s a formula for this, that it works out mathematically, or even that I’m consistent. Ultimately, ratings are reductive. A movie can’t be reduced to a number, nor can a critic’s response to a film. The review is what matters, not the ratings.

Although you still review many faith-based films in theaters and on video, you also review many secular Hollywood movies, including titles without any explicit religious connection. How do you decide what films to review?

Oh, I’ve always reviewed all kinds of movies, Hollywood and otherwise. The year I created Decent Films, 2000, I picked Ang Lee’s "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" as my favorite film on American screens that year.

How do I pick what to review? I start with anything I’m interested in or that I think my readers are interested in—either because it looks good, or because it looks bad, but people want confirmation and perspective on its badness.

So there are popular movies like "Guardians of the Galaxy" or "Frozen" that everyone is excited about, and controversial movies like "The Lone Ranger" or "Noah" that people are concerned about. Sometimes I share my readers’ enthusiasm or concerns; sometimes I take a different view. (I’m still getting pushback for my contrarian critique of "Frozen" and my enthusiasm for "Noah." I regret nothing!)

Then there are movies many people have never heard of or wouldn’t otherwise see, but I know many love them if I can get them to see them. When someone emails me saying "I’d never heard of 'The Overnighters' until I read your review, and wow, what a powerful film"—that’s the most rewarding part of this job.

Some readers might wish for you to post more reviews of independent faith-based films and television productions, such as the TNT Bible Series and the better titles from the Ignatius Press DVD catalogue. Is there any chance you might one day post a more extended video guide to Judeo-Christian titles that includes, say, the Emmy-winning "Joseph" miniseries from 1995?

Well, for going on three years I’ve been on what I’ve been calling "academic semi-hiatus" as I prepare for ordination in 2016. Obviously after that I’ll be beginning my diaconal ministry, but I also hope to begin a new phase in my critical career, and to write a lot more than I’m doing now.

Focusing more on smaller faith-based films is one thing I’ve thought about doing, although frankly I’m not interested in most faith-based fare because so little of it is any good. There is some worth calling out, though.

I want to write more about older films and foreign films. The 1971 pastoral instruction Communio et Progressio talks about the importance of developing "a truly catholic taste" in movies and other arts, embracing the traditional and the cutting-edge as well as the productions of all nations, cultures and subcultures. We Americans tend to be more parochial than "truly catholic" in our tastes, mostly going for mainstream Hollywood fare. I’d like to be a voice pointing people in other directions as well.  

When people talk about "Catholic movies," they often mean either films with an implicit Catholic imagination like Hitchcock’s "Vertigo" and the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, or films with explicit Catholic themes like "Gran Torino" and "The Mission." What are your own criteria of a good Catholic movie and what are some exemplars?

Honestly, I don’t like the term "Catholic movies" any more than I do "Catholic film criticism." Flannery O’Connor was a Catholic novelist, but she resisted the term "Catholic novel."

There are good movies and bad ones, true ones and false ones. There are films with Catholic trappings that are subtly Protestant, like "The Keys of the Kingdom," and films with Protestant trappings that are subtly Catholic, like "How Green Was My Valley."

All truth is God’s truth, all goodness is God’s goodness, all beauty is God’s beauty. What I want to promote is not so much watching Catholic movies as Catholic movie watching, if you follow me.

How does the Catholic faith inform your approach to film?

I would say being Catholic gives me a place to stand, not just morally, but existentially.

As a Catholic, I believe goodness, truth and beauty are varying perceptions of the same transcendent reality—“rays of God,” in Pope Pius XII’s memorable phrase. I believe we are created in God’s image, that our creative aspirations dimly reflect God’s creative actions.

So I reject the nihilistic view of art as a way of distracting or deceiving ourselves regarding the intolerable reality of the human condition (“lies breathed through silver,” to borrow a phrase from C. S. Lewis). I don’t believe “life is a mistake only art can correct,” as Stew bellows in Spike Lee’s amazing "Passing Strange."

Rather, I believe, as John Paul II wrote in his 1985 “Letter to Artists,” that even when artists “explore the darkest depths of the soul or the most unsettling aspects of evil,” they “give voice in a way to the universal desire for redemption”—a redemption that is real, not merely poetic.

How has your work changed or evolved over the years?

Oh, gosh. I’ve learned so much. I started out with a decent education in film, but I’d read a lot of film criticism without making a study of it, and it took me years to grow into the work. For a long time I was a better essayist than a critic—particularly when I really admired a film. The older reviews I’m least satisfied with today are the ones I worked hardest on, for movies that moved me the most.

The rise of Emmy-winning online TV shows, including programs available exclusively on Netflix, seems to highlight the ongoing decline of traditional media—including network television and newspapers where film critics have traditionally thrived. How do you adapt to survive these trends?

The jury’s still out! I’m grateful for the opportunities I’ve had.

I came along at a point where it was easy to put out a shingle on the Web and start posting movie reviews. The flip side, of course, is that online film critics are a dime a dozen. I had a blend of media arts training and religious education that I credit with helping me to carve out a niche and get some recognition. After a while I got my first regular gig with the National Catholic Register, which is my primary affiliation, and that led to other things.

I’m not a strategist, a networker or a self-marketer. I don’t know how to plan a successful career. I’m really all about the movies, the writing and the conversation. I just want to talk about movies and culture from the perspective of faith. I’ll keep doing that as long as I have something to say and as long as I have a platform to work from.

Looking back at your career thus far, what have been some highlights?

I was thrilled to be cited twice by Roger Ebert. In 2004 he cited me in his written and televised reviews of "The Passion of the Christ." In 2008, in an essay on "The Last Temptation of Christ" which went into his book on Martin Scorsese, he credited me with having persuaded him, against his earlier view, that the film is “technically blasphemous.” (He didn’t think its blasphemous character mattered, which is fair enough.) I’ve sometimes thought that if controversial Jesus movies were a Hollywood staple, I might have scored a guest hosting gig on his TV show!

Of all the filmmaker interviews I’ve done, the best experience was probably my first junket, for "The Return of the King" in 2004. I especially enjoyed talking to Ian McKellen and John Rhys-Davies, both thoughtful guys with very different perspectives.

Ultimately, the best part of the job is writing about those rare films that awaken everything in you that loves cinema and writing about it, that inspire you to reach deep into yourself and produce something that’s as much a manifesto or a love letter as a review. Writing about films like "The Kid with a Bike" or "Of Gods and Men" is the greatest privilege I have as a critic.

What has been most challenging for you as a film critic?

On a trivial level, the biggest challenge is that the majority of high-profile Hollywood movies are terrible to mediocre—but those are the movies people want to read about. My review of "How to Train Your Dragon 2," which I didn’t care for, got something like four times more reads than my review of "Selma," my #2 film of 2014. That’s discouraging!

You are a film critic, father, husband, and diaconal candidate. How would you describe your vocation?

Complicated! Thankfully, my first and primary vocation, my marriage, has provided the firmest possible foundation for all the rest. Without Suzanne’s heroic support and advocacy, there’s no way I could even think of doing what I do.  

Who are your role models in the faith, either living or dead?

Thomas More, Francis de Sales, Francis Xavier, Thérèse of Lisieux and Edith Stein. John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis.

In some of your reviews you seem to suggest that film can transcend its medium to become a spiritual experience. How might a really good movie become a form of prayer for you?

In as many ways as there are kinds of movies. Watching a great nature documentary, like Luc Besson’s "Atlantis," can be an implicit psalm of praise to the Creator. A painful drama about family dysfunction, like "A Separation," can express yearning for healing and reconciliation. A transcendent comedy, like "The Court Jester," can restore the soul and fill the heart with joy and gratitude. God can meet us in the goodness of "Le Fils," the beauty of "Finding Nemo" and the concern for truth in "The Informant!" All we need is eyes to see.

What did you give up for Lent this year and why?

Heh. Oh dear.

Well, I’ll just throw this out: I think the official ascesis of the Latin Church today, what we call fasting and abstinence, is pitifully lax. Meatless Fridays in Lent, only two “fasting” days annually during which you can still eat three times a day, and an hour “fast” before communion, which barely counts. It’s tokenism, even legalism.

Catholics used to go meatless through all of Lent (and of course we had meatless Fridays year round). No eggs or dairy either. Easter eggs used to mean something, because we’d gone without eggs for six weeks. The Eastern Churches still restrict all this and more—fish, olive oil, alcohol, even sex! They have real fasting too, as in no food for a whole day or more.

Latin Catholics badly need a renewal in serious ascesis. A praxis that costs little is worth little. I’m not saying I relish the idea of going quasi-vegan for six weeks! Frankly, Eastern ascesis scares me. But each year I try to get a little closer, to give up one more thing.

For years I’ve said I could give up practically anything for Lent, except my beloved fukamushi green tea, which I drink all day long. So naturally this year I had to give up tea. It was easier than I thought, thank God.

What do you hope people take away from your work?

I don’t want to tell anyone what to think. I hope I offer a model of how to think about movies. I hope each review offers a responsible, thoughtful approach to the film, along with sufficient context and perspective to aid readers in reaching their own conclusions. Also, of course, I hope it makes for a good read.

There are pious souls who can’t imagine a morally serious person finding value in "Harry Potter," and sophisticated cinephiles who suppose that anyone with theological objections to "The Last Temptation of Christ" must be a censorious nut job. If I can cause either one a bit of cognitive dissonance and help open them up to dialogue with another point of view, then that to me is a job well done.

What are your hopes for the future?

Well, I’ve just completed the most ambitious redesign of Decent Films in its history, and whenever I have a shiny new website it makes me want to write more! Someday I would love to finish the book I’ve been trying to finish for over a decade. After ordination! My life begins again in mid-2016.

Any final thoughts?

To borrow a tagline from my friend and peer Jeffrey Overstreet: “P.S. I could be wrong.” About any review, any movie. I’m not the pope of movies. There is no pope of movies. Even the pope isn’t the pope of movies. I’m always happy to be disagreed with, if someone can back up their opinions with thoughtful reasons.

Sean Salai, S.J. , is a contributing writer at  America .

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Movie Review: ‘Candyman’

NEW YORK (CNS) — With his duo of recent films, “Get Out” (2017) and 2019’s “Us,” Jordan Peele has employed the horror genre as a vehicle of social commentary to both critical and popular acclaim.

Now he has co-written the script for the thriller sequel “Candyman” (Universal) with an eye to the same end. Morally, however, this latest project diverges widely from his earlier movies, and the upshot is unsettling.

In crafting a follow-up to the eponymous 1992 movie — one adapted, like its predecessor, from the short story “The Forbidden” by Clive Barker — director Nia DaCosta, who collaborated on the screenplay with Peele and Win Rosenfeld, keeps the focus squarely fixed on her protagonist, Chicago painter Anthony McCoy (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II). Though successful in the past, Anthony is currently artistically blocked.

Searching for fresh inspiration, Anthony eventually finds it in his own backyard. Together with his cohabiting girlfriend, gallery director Brianna Cartwright (Teyonah Parris), Anthony lives in in a gentrified neighborhood that was formerly home to the Windy City’s notorious Cabrini-Green housing project.

Along with other circumstances, a chance encounter with William Burke (Colman Domingo), a veteran resident of the once-deprived area, prompts Anthony to investigate the urban legend concerning the hook-handed murderer of the title that long prevailed among the denizens of Cabrini-Green. His interest in the grim but complicated story soon becomes obsessive.

Even from the start, the nature of this picture’s antecedents makes the harnessing of a blood-soaked slasher flick for the purposes of satire feel like an unequal — and therefore awkward — yoking. By the time of its conclusion, however, “Candyman” has degenerated into a fantasy of racial revenge wholly at odds with Gospel values.

To have a rampaging killer unleashed on the fictional representatives of real-life injustice not only appeals to the audience’s basest instincts. It also represents an unhelpful pseudo-solution to problems that require sensitive and thoughtful assessment.

Thus, unlike Peele’s earlier work cited above, “Candyman” ultimately does little or nothing to provide viewers with insight or to advance dialogue in the real world about the vital topics on which it touches.

The film contains much gory violence, gruesome images, a vengeance theme, cohabitation, a benignly viewed homosexual relationship, drug use, a couple of profanities, about a half-dozen milder oaths, frequent rough language as well as considerable crude and crass talk. The Catholic News Service classification is O — morally offensive. The Motion Picture Association rating is R — restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.                

More Movie Reviews

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Home viewing roundup: What’s available to stream and what’s on horizon

Movie Review: ‘The First Omen’

Movie Review: ‘Road House’

Videogame Review: ‘Alan Wake 2’

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A Catholic Priest Reviews The Chosen

Efficacious grace moves us by means of delight, and this delightful series, the chosen , is indeed a grace..

Just about two months ago, I watched the existing episodes of Dallas Jenkins’s The Chosen .

Now, I am not too keen on most of the films out there about Jesus. There are only two that I liked to some extent (I’ll leave these out, but you might figure out which ones they are as you read this article), but I started watching The Chosen in the following way.

I was in our computer room and heard a discussion of The Chosen between one priest confrere of mine and two other priest confreres. Now, the former, let’s call him Fr. X, has very strong opinions about movies, and he enjoys them very much, and he doesn’t like second-rate, “cheesy” Christian films. He spoke of how wonderful The Chosen was. I had never heard of it. Then the other two, Frs. Y and Z, told of their being moved to tears by the episodes they had seen and related that several other confreres had had the same experience. Among these, all but one regularly, practically daily, celebrate the more ancient form of the Mass in Latin. All are careful disciples of St. Thomas Aquinas. They are definitely of the “high and dry” school, as orthodox as they come.

Well, this subjective impression—before, I never would have thought of Fr. Z being moved to tears about anything—persuaded me that I ought to watch the episodes, and so I began. The result? I had the same impressions as the others, and I have looked forward to the new episodes as they come out, including this last Tuesday’s much awaited airing of Season 2, episode 4, as lovely as all the others.

Before this experience, I would have cautioned about the film medium as being insufficiently iconographic or liturgical in its form. This is a critique of movies about Christ often found among the more conservative of the Eastern Orthodox, for example. There is something to this reservation, since there is no doubt that the liturgically proclaimed scriptures and the power of the holy sacraments, and the Church’s sound traditions in the honor due to sacred images, take priority over live performances on stage or cinema or in musical cantatas. These former are necessary and obligatory for all Catholics, but the Church has never required attendance or participation in sacred drama.

Even so, we Catholics invented the live, in-motion drama, presenting the mysteries of salvation. Already, as early as the fourth century, there were hints of sacred plays and performances, and in the Middle Ages, these became a practically universal custom, at least in the Latin-rite Church. The mystery or miracle play accompanied the greater feasts of the year, especially in Passiontide and at Corpus Christi. The most famous of these is the Oberammergau Passion Play, which dates to the Baroque period and is still put on every ten years, drawing many people from all over the world. The last century saw the publication and revival in England of the medieval plays in several places, like Coventry. These plays had humorous interludes and were extremely entertaining with a tone solemn and devout but also warm and human.

We are used to these allowances in sacred art. Are there any two identical paintings of the nativity of the Lord? Hardly. Even in icons there are differences of style, and beyond that, the same event is depicted with characters in the style and dress of various times and regions. The true, historical event is dressed up in the manner of later times, and no one sees this as an abuse or spiritually unhelpful.

In addition, there are the various mystics, usually women, who narrated their own insights and grace-filled imagination of the events of the gospels, especially the infancy and the passion of the Savior. We read these with interest because even though they differ widely among themselves, they convey the wisdom and insight of the Holy Spirit working with their loving imagination. For example, St. Bridget of Sweden, Ven. Mary of Agreda, and Bl. Anne Catherine Emmerich are all different in the many concrete details they relate. So there is no prohibition of adding back-stories and details to the gospel story, as long as it is not misrepresented. Here, it is not—so far, at least, since the series will go on for some seasons.

Thus it is that our only lively concerns about a film production on the gospel narratives are two. First, the presentation must be orthodox—that is, does not rationalize or contradict the gospel narrative, as, for example, in Scorsese’s film version of Kazantzakis’s Last Temptation of Christ . This orthodoxy is beautifully shown in Pasolini’s The Gospel According to Matthew , with a minimum of dramatic filling-out of the sparse Gospel accounts, and in Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ , which did use freely some of the details of Blessed Anne Catherine’s meditations. Second, the film must be good art—that is, it must be done with skill and fine dialogue. So many religious films can be lethally smarmy or third-rate. I name no names, since I don’t want to distract the reader who may have other opinions, but let’s just say that the difference would be like that between an icon, a fresco by Blessed Angelico, or a Murillo Madonna and a mass-produced holy card. I think we all understand the difference.

The other two films I have just mentioned meet both these tests, even though they have very different affective and artistic styles.

I think The Chosen meets these tests also, so far, both as for the orthodoxy (with a significant exception I will address in a moment) and certainly for the really professional and serious artistic skill with which it is acted.

As for its orthodoxy, Christ is clearly divine, the literal fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy, with gifts of clear knowledge of the Godhead and of his creatures, especially human hearts, possessing power to work real miracles and to expel real demons, and who is fully conscious of his identity from childhood on, while displaying a genuine human and manly personality, capable of real human affection and true humility. In addition, Jonathan Roumie, who beautifully plays the role of Jesus, is a Catholic, a devout one, who was raised Greek Orthodox. In interviews he professes his belief in the centrality of the sacraments. This is a Jesus we can accept easily!

But Jesus is also the Son of a Virgin Mother. This is clear in the film in the case of virginity taken in the moral sense that Christ was conceived without human intercourse. Yet Catholic tradition also insists on Our Lady’s physical virginity, which requires a miraculous birth, with his coming forth from her womb with the seal remaining intact, displaying the power which he also displayed in his risen body through the unmoved stone and the doors of the upper room. On this point the little Christmas segment that was put out in promotion of the series is off base. It shows Our Lady undergoing the pains of birth, a rather unseemly thing, and contrary to our belief, reiterated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church and in the catechesis of St. John Paul II. These are simply the most recent pronouncements; in addition, there is the whole of Catholic tradition. There are the Fathers, the Eastern liturgies, the Christmas hymns of the Roman Liturgy of the Hours, the Roman Catechism of the Council of Trent, and numerous other testimonies from tradition. Notably, there is a statement in the postconciliar liturgy. In one of the prefaces of the votive Masses of the Blessed Virgin Mary at the Foot of the Cross, approved by St. John Paul, we read, “She who had given him birth without the pains of childbirth was to endure the greatest of pains in bringing forth to new life the family of your Church.”

I belabor this point since there are many otherwise orthodox Catholics, priests and laity, who are unaware that this is not just a pious opinion, but an ordinary teaching in the Church’s exposition of the creed as found in her two official catechisms. Even the reformers Calvin and Luther would never have questioned this belief; both professed Our Lady’s perpetual virginity. Even so, if you watch the series as it is, the childbirth scene is not among the episodes, so you can avoid it just by not watching the Christmas teaser.

Here, too, is something to watch out for in future episodes: will they present the current (but not classical, reformation) teaching among Protestants that Our Lady had other children by St. Joseph? That’s a pitfall that I hope the artistic crew and scriptwriters don’t fall into, but it remains to be seen.

As for the sacraments, and the primacy of Peter, so far the episodes are clear. There are direct and indirect references to baptism and the holy Eucharist throughout. When the little children, in a charming episode, ask the Lord what foods he likes best, he says, “I especially like bread.”

I think the director and writers are sensitive to their Catholic audience, even though they are Evangelicals, and they consult Catholic priests along with their own pastors, and a Messianic Jewish rabbi.

Now, there is one other thing that is neither precisely doctrinal or artistic. Each age in Christian art, as I mentioned earlier, has projected some of its own visual experience and behavior into the gospel story. This is normal. So also in The Chosen , the rapport between the Lord and his apostles is affected by the easy relations modern people have with authority figures in our American and European cultures. So we have a Jesus who is perhaps much less reserved and serious than a rabbi, or even a family father, would have been in the first century of our era. In traditional cultures, those in authority do not laugh or banter or even smile easily, except with their equals, and they do not joke around with their subordinates. The Jesus of The Chosen shows the whole range of emotions with everyone, and so laughs a bit and makes wry comments. Even so, he is clearly, solemnly, and prayerfully set on his coming passion. The notably modern tone of some of the banter and conversation does not obscure the serious and supernatural sense of the Savior’s mission; rather, it may make this more accessible to modern people who expect popes, kings and queens, parents, and clergy to be folksy and unintimidating. None of the modern concessions go beyond what one might see in a medieval mystery play anyway.

The characters of the apostles (especially Matthew and Peter), Our Lady, the Magdalene, Nicodemus, and others are presented in a truly charming way, which makes the viewer respond to them with real feeling and affection. This series, in fact, I think, will help the use of the imagination in discursive prayer, for those of us who find that helpful. Any work of art that increases our desire for the presence and company of the Lord and his holy ones is a great boon for us Catholics, as we await the great, visible, audible, palpable reunion of the just on the Last Day, when signs and sacraments, and statues and icons, as well as films, will pass away.

In the meantime, as St. Augustine teaches, efficacious grace moves us by means of delight, and this delightful series, The Chosen , is indeed a grace.

Image credit: The Chosen via YouTube .

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