"One might expect, with the actor still relying on his trademark California intonation and histrionic outbursts, that this would be another one of his late-stage career larks, like playing Dracula or himself. But in The Carpenter's Son, a bafflingly serious stew of horror, drama and fantasy, it slowly starts to dawn on us that this is in fact, not a joke."
"The film, from Egypt-born, London-raised writer and director Lotfy Nathan, is inspired by the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, a text seen as heretical by some, which offers highly debated insight into the early years of Jesus. Nathan begins by clueing us into the fact that this isn't your vicar's Sunday school biblical drama, as a screaming cave-based birth sequence is followed by a bonfire of babies, King Herod's men throwing on more and more as mothers wail at the side."
The Carpenter's Son casts Nicolas Cage as an unnamed carpenter, the adoptive father of Jesus, and follows the family after a violent birth and escape from King Herod's men. The film draws on the Infancy Gospel of Thomas and blends horror, drama and fantasy as the boy grows in a remote village where suspicion, a joyless devout father and a strange lonely girl create tense dynamics. The director stages shocking sequences, including a screaming cave birth and a bonfire of babies, but the film's tone is bafflingly serious and its ambitions clash with uneven execution, leaving the narrative unclear and largely unentertaining.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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