MARY (2024) - Mark Reviews Movies

Mary, Netflix

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Review by Mark Dujsik | December 6, 2024

Looked at from either a religious or a more realistic perspective, the story of Mary, the mother of Jesus, is a fascinating one. If some divine power was involved, here's a teenager who unexpectedly finds herself with the weight of becoming pregnant by heavenly intervention, giving birth to the spiritual savior of humanity, and knowing that her son's story will end in a violent death. If none of that is the case, here's a girl burdened with the societal stigma of being young, pregnant, and unwed but who overcomes all of that to raise a child who will become one of the most influential figures in all of history.

In other words, Mary could choose either option for the foundation of its story—a religious or secular one—and have plenty to work with in regards to its eponymous character. That screenwriter Timothy Michael Hayes selects the religious angle, then, is of little concern to the potential success of this movie, because it's not as if Mary's life is of much concern to any official Christian scripture. There's plenty of room for interpretation and imagination to get at the heart of this young woman and her story.

That Mary, played by Noa Cohen, is mostly a passive figure in her own tale, though, is quite disappointing. In director D.J. Caruso's movie, she's merely a pawn in some spiritual game between the angels of the heavens and a sinister fallen one, in the political machinations of a mad king and the officials of the temple, and to the fate of the divine purpose basically forced in front of her before she was even born. Mary's only job in this story is to endure all of these challenges until she gives birth, so that she can be pushed into the backdrop of both history and religious dogma.

It's odd that a movie so much about Mary's faith in the divine plan set for her possesses such little faith in her as a character. After promising to tell Mary's full story in the opening moments, Hayes' script immediately gives us her parents, Joachim (Ori Pfeffer) and Anne (Hilla Vidor), who are desperate to have a child but cannot. Joachim heads out into the desert to fast, only for the archangel Gabriel (Dudley O'Shaughnessy) to announce that Anne will conceive and that the couple's daughter will be a vital part of divine plan for humanity.

From there, we also meet King Herod (Anthony Hopkins, who, it's nice to see, can still chew lines and scenery with aplomb), a man obsessed with power, his legacy, and his self-proclaimed status as king to the Jews of Judea. Herod keeps returning in this story, becoming increasingly tyrannical and determined to maintain control—even with violence if he deems it necessary. As a villain, he's sort of required for the Biblical foundation for this tale, but as a figure in what's supposedly Mary's story, he's yet another distraction to keep us from noticing how little sway Mary possesses here.

The rest of the plot does basically go through the motions of what just about everyone already knows. Mary goes about her ordinary life, as a maiden at the temple in Jerusalem, and is visited by Gabriel, who informs her that she has been chosen to give birth to a messiah.

She has no say in the matter in this telling, neither wrestling with or really accepting the divine task put before her. That's pretty much the standard the movie establishes for her up until that point.

There's the exposition involving her parents. Her future husband Joseph (Ido Tako) spots her by a river one day, after Gabriel suggests he head in her general direction, is her partner by way of an arranged marriage, because Mary's parents hear him speak of the angel's guidance. She's banished from the temple, becomes a target of rumors and gossip, and is eventually forced to leave home to give birth, as Herod's megalomania reaches its apex. Even Lucifer (Eamon Farren) shows up on occasion to tempt some characters, including Mary, into giving up on all of this, but it's not much of a conflict when all of these characters simply accept the role put to them.

Who is Mary here, if not simply someone being influenced, coerced, and pushed around by everyone and everything around her? That's a question the filmmakers seem to have little interest in answering. The movie's goal, it seems, isn't to turn Mary into an active figure in her own story or even to understand how an ordinary person might deal with the unthinkable pressure of being at the center of a divinely ordained plan. Cohen occasionally suggests some underlying doubts, fear, and resilience in her performance, but Caruso seems to have directed his star to mainly appear vulnerable and, as that old phrasing goes, full of grace.

The movie looks fine enough, perhaps, and it feels sincere about its intentions in a general sort of way. Mary, though, isn't really Mary's story in any way that counts or that feels distinct from the version we already know.

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