Mary Magdalene

To say that Mary Magdalene, a run-through of the last year of Jesus’s short career as an itinerant preacher and soi-disant Messiah in Roman-ruled Judea, is a strange film is an understatement. Generally adhering to the New Testament account of Jesus’s ministry, the narrative is updated with a feminist revision that argues that its title character was not the whore of legend as, for instance, was depicted with relish by Martin Scorsese in his 1988 misfire The Last Temptation of Christ but a true Apostle. And not only a true Apostle but in actuality the real bearer of Christ’s message of peace, love and understanding whereas Peter (Chiwetel Ejiofor) was merely the rock on which the Established Church was built.

Fair enough you might say but then why would you cast Rooney Mara who came to our attention with the dark 2009 thriller Girl With The Dragon Tattoo as Mary and Joaquin Phoenix, the dope-addled private eye of Inherent Vice (2015) as Jesus?

Whilst generally adhering to the familiar narrative building blocks classically-stated in George Sydney’s conventionally pious 1965 blockbuster The Greatest Story Ever Told (and many other direct and indirect versions thereof since) Mary is re-invented as an independent woman in a repressive patriarchal society who refuses an arranged marriage and a life of dutiful child-bearing to join Jesus in his peripatetic spiritual and political odyssey. These perambulations give cinematographer Greig Fraser (an Australian as is director Garth Davis helming his second feature film after Lion in 2016 in which Mara had appeared), the opportunity to indulge in lots of strikingly bare landscapes but do not soften the tendentiousness of Helen Edmundson and Phillippa Goslett's script.

Perhaps Mara and Phoenix were attracted by the against-type nature of their characters to accept the roles (I can’t imagine there was lot of money at stake) but their characters are so over-determined by the film's political agenda as to leave them no scope for individual interpretation. Mary is gracefully inspirited (and seems to have a good supply of skincare products), Jesus painfully possessed by his mission. Tahar Rahim as Judas is just out and out annoying with his puppy dog devotion.  Of the apostles not only is Peter a black man but so is Andrew. This, one feels, is carrying political correctness to ridiculous lengths. 

One can only surmise that the idea behind this film was to reboot the Jesus story for young Christian women (and black audiences) looking for some contemporary credibility in this racily secularized world. Who else would buy its pitch I can’t imagine.

 

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