Journey to Bethlehem

The film sets the nativity as a musical. Mary is presented as a young woman who likes reading and does not want to marry; her family betroths her to Joseph and the two do not know each other. After the angel comes, what she has to tell is not easily accepted by anybody. Meanwhile Antipas, King Herod's son, is looking for a threat. Adam Anders writes and directs. He comes from music production and worked on the music team of the series Glee. The songs are written in a contemporary pop arrangement; the narrative does not use a liturgical register and addresses a young audience directly. Its choice is to give Mary an inner life. The character objects, asks questions and makes the decision herself, and that room is usually absent from classical nativity narratives. The Herod passages sit on the comic side and unbalance the tone; the narrative moves between serious sections and sung comedy. It was shot on a large scale, with crowd dance numbers and period sets as its visible investment. It opened at Christmas 2023 and its audience was largely families and church congregations. Who it is for: viewers who like religious musicals and Christmas films to watch with family. Who it is not for: the tone is uneven, the songs resemble one another, and the additions to the source text will bother some.