Review: Noah

The inclusion of the “biblical epic” in the contemporary cinematic zeitgeist seems jarring and hopelessly anachronistic; it reminds one of the creaky, DeMille costume dramas like Samson and Delilah and The 10 Commandments.  A return to these overblown spectacles may, to some, look like the death-cry of modern cinema, since the enflamed budgets and cultural irrelevance of these spectacle-films nearly caused the collapse of the Hollywood studio system in the 1960’s. However, in the hands of director Darren Aronofsky, the return to the lofty parables of the Old Testament becomes less of a reminder of the fossilized mundanity and more of an invigorating look at what a world-class director can do with a familiar story.

The story of Noah is a simple one. There have been ten generations of men since the fall of Adam and the earth is a desolate, geographically non-descript purgatory where nothing grows. The young Noah watches as his father is murdered by the descendants of Cain, and escapes into the dangerous mountainous regions of the land. We move to 40 years later and the young Noah is now an old Russell Crowe with a wife and three sons.  After some prophetic dreaming, advice from his grandfather, and divine instruction from “The Creator”, Noah begins his monumental ark, all the while plagued by the savage bands of humans left on earth, led by the malevolent Tubal-Cain.

The performances are generally solid. Anthony Hopkins puts in a strange cameo as Noah’s grandfather and seems fairly startled that he’s on screen, while Ray Winstone is a surprisingly engaging antagonist. He adds just the right amount of restraint to his usual cockney-geezer persona so that his performance is both plausible and a lot of fun. The performances of Noah’s family are competent but largely forgettable; the female characters don’t particularly have much to do but look distressed, concerned, or supportive, yet Jennifer Connelly and Emma Watson bring a certain liveliness to their roles as Noah’s wife and adopted daughter respectively.  Crowe’s performance as Noah is uneven; half the time his Noah is fairly histrionic, complete with the archaic grandiloquent delivery of the old 50’s movies. At other moments he portrays a more vulnerable, wounded character who clearly suffers physical and psychological damage at the weight of his overwhelming task.

It is this tonal unevenness that vexes the whole film. Aronofsky can’t seem to decide whether he wants to produce a CGI-laden blockbuster or an intimate, character-driven drama akin to his previous work such as, The Wrestler. While the juxtaposition of the two often feels awkward, when isolated, both aspects of the film are effective. The CGI sequences of animals arriving en-masse, flooding and a huge battle sequence look fantastic (a particular stand out is a bold, beautifully conceived flashback recalling the fall of Eden). The cast are at their best during tense inter-familial conflict on the ark itself, although the last third of the film feels somewhat anti-climactic after the monumental events that precede it.  Noah is ultimately way more fun that it should’ve been. It avoids many of the pitfalls of the standard Hollywood noise-fest to produce an enthralling and energetic version of the well-known story. It’s not perfect, but proves that there’s life in those age-old pages yet.

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