A Fresh Retelling of The Nativity Story

"It's the most radical kind of film in that it's not cynical," says director Catherine Hardwicke in describing her new movie, "The Nativity Story." Far from the blood-splattered "Passion of the Christ," the irreverent "Life of Brian" or the musical "Jesus Christ Superstar," "The Nativity Story" occupies a space between a literal retelling of the Gospels and a teenage love story (see review on Page 36).

Mike Rich's script focuses on the months before a girl named Mary gives birth to a boy named Jesus, and the long journey from her home in Nazareth to fiance Joseph's ancestral home, Bethlehem. Oscar Isaac plays Joseph, whom Post critic Ann Hornaday says "enjoys a pride of place usually missing from the Mary-centric narrative."

For Isaac's first major film role (he's also in Stephen Soderbergh's "Guerrilla," scheduled for release in 2008, and "The Half Life of Timofey Berezin," slated for early 2007), production went "so quickly that I'm not that far removed from it. . . . They wanted it by Christmas. It all happened at light speed," Isaac says. The film was written, shot, edited and theater-bound in less than 10 months.

Maybe it helped that the actors all knew the basic plot.

"You know, they go to Bethlehem, there's no room at the inn," Isaac says, offering a thumbnail sketch. But little is written in the Bible about the internal lives of these characters. Beyond a few passing references to Mary's husband, the Gospels hardly mention Joseph, and artistic depictions typically follow their lead. In many Nativity scenes, Isaac jokes, "he's the third cheek to the left . . . kind of in the shadows, looking over a camel or a donkey." The Bible merely hints at his personality, referring to him only as "just" or "righteous." Isaac says: "When I was starting out, I was wondering, how do you relate to an icon, how do you relate to these ideas of righteousness? And I couldn't."

Isaac, who was raised a Christian, scoured the Bible for hints about Joseph's personality. "After studying it and figuring out what the context of describing his righteousness was -- and actually just doing the scenes -- I realized that, 'Oh, righteous means love.'

"When you step into the sandals, you see it from a different perspective. I realized, 'Oh, my gosh, he had so much to grapple with.' I mean, really, the big one is sharing your wife with God. There's this woman, and he's had his eye on her, and God chooses her! I'm sure he's like, 'Why did you have to choose her? There are so many other women to choose from!' "

Teenage angst is a familiar theme for Hardwicke. The director of "Thirteen" (2003) and "Lords of Dogtown" (2005) is known for unflinching portrayals of rebellious kids. But rebellion is not what interested her about "Nativity Story."

When she first read the script, Hardwicke says, "it was the first time that I'd thought about Mary as a human being instead of an icon, a wonderful statue in the Vatican." Upon realizing Mary was probably only 13 or 14 at the time of Jesus's birth, "I thought about all the 13-year-olds I knew. What if that happened to them?" On top of being told by an angel that she was impregnated by God, Mary faced an arranged marriage, brutal Roman rule and "all the townspeople who didn't believe her," Hardwicke says.

Isaac says: "I found out Catherine was [directing] it, and I thought that was such an unusual choice. Then I realized it makes perfect sense, because her last two movies were about adolescent kids going through trials and tribulations, and this is the most famous adolescent child going through the most famous trials and tribulations."