Nicolas Cage's Religious Thriller Film Is Less Extreme Than Expected
The acclaimed actor could be the ideal selection for a audacious scary movie centered on Jesus Christ, though not for the causes some viewers may think. Actually, the star doesn't even portray the central religious figure in The Carpenter’s Son: the part he plays is listed only as The Carpenter. The actor is framed as the Joseph of this narrative, working to maintain his religious convictions while the teenage character (portrayed by the young actor), his teenage foster child, starts to show miraculous gifts. Why it's challenging to picture any other prominent performer in this role is that while the role grows stricken with multiple trials, Nicolas Cage seems almost emotionally confident that this dark, bleak feature is deserving of his effort.
Cage's Current Career Choices
Cage was spending his time more carefully in recent years. He still stars in more movies than most average viewers may ever watch — for example, were you informed that the actor has made a trio of separate cowboy movies in the past three years? — however he also includes esteemed independent films such as one recent hit, Pig, and a further title. The Carpenter’s Son sounds like one of those, in that it’s genre-adjacent, potentially provocative, and approaches a over-the-top description in a earnest manner.
The Film's Storyline and Execution
Regrettably, filmmaker Lotfy Nathan does not reward the audience's focus. The Carpenter’s Son starts from a interestingly wandering place, presented as drawing from an obscure religious text about Christ’s childhood. The Carpenter, The Mother, and the boy move from place to place, afraid of faith-based hostility or distrust regarding their son's mysterious gifts. “Trouble pursues us,” Cage mournfully notes. It goes on as sinister entities attack the family where they currently live, initiating on the traditional religious challenge for The Boy.
Sometimes, this production echoes an Exorcist-style horror film, but no one of the main figures are explicitly taken over. Rather, they are progressively isolated mutually, when these powers influence a nearby girl (the actress, named “The Stranger”) who the son forms a relationship with, and presents all disturbing images of a bleak destiny. Cage's role especially fights with his place in the narrative, sometimes scolding his child he can’t fully understand.
Controversy and Caution
The subject matter is likely to invite debate, and the director treats it with plenty of delicacy — too much, possibly. The notion of a teenage boy dealing with his future martyrdom and lured by dark influences is indeed terrifying, but Nathan may be hesitant regarding seeming gratuitous and keen to telegraph his aims, so he often falls back on dimly foreboding cinematography. Characters continually reflect — the singer-actress, who showed genuine potential in a recent film update, interestingly — yields her acting to her character's costume, occasionally interrupted by some gnarly horror imagery.
The Star's Acting and Film's Weaknesses
At the same time, the actor flirts with precisely the type of melodramatic acting that his ironic fans could be expecting. There is a moment (shown) in the trailer in which he erupts and screams “I’ve lost my faith!” Should such of florid outburst is part of your Jesus-themed horror movie, possibly a more boldly ridiculous approach would take better advantage of the actor's readiness to go over the top if needed. Rather, The Carpenter’s Son is closer to the weaker straight-to-DVD movies Cage made through much of that period — excluding the campy action films instead the dramas and ghost stories that always sound promising, and often contain several notable actor's highlights, but ultimately feel like, well, inexpensive direct-to-consumer content.
Truthfully, a number of those, while less ambitious, were easier to view as a whole. At this point I have to disregard my personal rule, not spiritual but work-oriented: Long ago, a beloved editor convinced me to banish adjectives like “boring” or “dull” from my reviewing language. Such terms convey little other than a personal and generically described impatience, withdrawing from the task of vividly conveying the intellectual and feeling of viewing an individual production. It’s difficult to communicate tedium without sounding boring oneself. It’s no more expressive as labeling a movie “interesting.” “Say more,” that is.
Yet, I acknowledge, I was bored throughout The Carpenter’s Son. In its defense, it’s a churchy kind of dullness, not because The Carpenter’s Son is lecturing, but since it requires a type of dutiful submission to view it. At some point soon after starting, this feature enters a cyclic tempo of simmering distress, and does not
