“Journey to Bethlehem” Review: A Failed Christmas Experiment
Earlier this month, The New York Times published an article proposing this question: “Are ‘Elf’ and ‘Love Actually’ the Last Holiday Classics We’ll Ever Get?” It’s an apt one, considering we get a plethora of new Christmas content yearly and most of it disappears from memory faster than a wet snow does on the ground. In the piece, author Esther Zuckerman argues that some of this has to do with the changing medium and how our content is delivered now via streaming more than anything else. I would agree with her, but that particular argument doesn’t account for movies like Journey to Bethlehem, which is now playing only in theaters.
For this holiday season, we have been given an early “present”; though if it’s truly a gift or merely coal will be up to you and your tolerance for new pop-music stylings to a story that you are no doubt familiar. As we are informed as the movie begins, this is an adaptation of “the greatest story every told”. That is, Christ’s birth.
The musician behind such successes as Glee and High School Musical (the Disney channel films, not the Disney+ series), Adam Anders makes his feature film debut here, helming the screenplay alongside Peter Barsocchini, also of High School Musical fame. We have the usual cast of characters: Mary, Joseph, Gabriel, King Herod, the Three Wise Men, and Fig the Donkey (wait, was he in the Bible?) This time, however, they all sing and dance to original songs by Anders and his wife.
Having more than a passing interest in musicals, I was eager to hear these new compositions. I am sorry to report that they are largely disappointing. Even for somebody who is charmed by that “pop sound” in their musicals (I am not), these songs stylistically leave a lot to be desired. Riddled with imperfect rhymes, the lyrics are lazy and often do not serve the story (one Mary/Joseph duet asks a titular question that isn’t clearly answered by the end of the number) or are simply too on the nose (when Joseph feels torn with a decision and duets with…himself).
The sequences themselves are derivative of a music video, thereby ripping from them all theatricality and emotional gravitas. I know I’m supposed to feel something when Gabriel appears in the sky and begins to sing, but it’s all so sanitized and choreographed. In their attempt to turn the material on its head and defy expectations, it only reinforces that sometimes less is more.
Now that I’ve watched the film, I am confused as to who this film is for. Sure, it may thematically live up to distinction as a “family film” (a nonsense term, by the way; every family is different), but I can’t imagine how many whole families will genuinely enjoy it. The humor is forced and misplaced, with the Three Wise Men serving as our comic relief (think the controversial gargoyles from Disney’s otherwise serious The Hunchback of Notre Dame). The performances are generally fine for what they are, but nothing that makes any of it worthwhile. There is little appeal here for somebody without a religious background and yet those who maintain a reverential approach to this foundation story will likely be completely turned off by the irreverent moments at play here.
Now that I think of it, perhaps I am the target audience. A young (ish) person of faith who is interested in new ways to engage with stories such as these- and who loves musicals. With that conclusion, my critique of the film is made all the more potent. Unfortunately, Journey to Bethlehem is a disservice to the both the Biblical epic genre (though, coming it at under two hours, it can hardly be called an epic) and the musical one. I have some ideas for how this film- and others like it- can be fixed, but that may be better suited for a future post.
In the meantime, the movie serves as a kind of interesting experiment: what happens when you put pop music and dancing into “the greatest story ever told”? The result: the impact of the story fizzles out, maintaining our engagement only enough to keep us cringing for the length of the runtime.