Nicolas Cage's Jesus-Themed Thriller Film Isn't as Wild as It Sounds

The acclaimed actor could be the perfect pick for a bold scary movie about Jesus Christ, but not for the motivations some audiences could guess. Actually, the star does not actually portray the central religious figure in The Carpenter’s Son: the part he plays is credited simply as a craftsman. The actor is cast as a father figure in this tale, striving to maintain his religious convictions while his son (acted by Noah Jupe), their adolescent foster child, starts to show miraculous gifts. The reason it's hard to envision any other leading star playing this part is that while the figure grows burdened with numerous difficulties, the actor appears almost touchingly confident that the dark, bleak small film is worth his time.

Cage's Latest Film Selections

Nicolas Cage has been spending his time more judiciously in recent years. He continues to does more movies than the majority of regular audiences may ever watch — as an illustration, were you informed that the man has filmed several separate Westerns in the past three years? — but he also adds esteemed independent films like Dream Scenario, another notable movie, and a further title. The Carpenter’s Son appears to be in that category, because it’s borderline horror, possibly controversial, and approaches a campy-sounding premise quite seriously.

The Film's Plot and Handling

Unfortunately, writer-director Lotfy Nathan does not reward the audience's focus. The Carpenter’s Son begins with a engagingly rootless context, presented as drawing from an obscure religious text concerning the youthful days of the messiah. The Carpenter, The Mother, and their son travel from place to place, anxious of faith-based hostility or doubt about their son's strange powers. “Calamity follows us,” The Carpenter mournfully notes. That continues when sinister entities attack them at their new home, beginning with that familiar Biblical temptation for The Boy.

At times, this production echoes an Exorcist-style possession movie, though none of the main figures are clearly inhabited. On the contrary, they become progressively isolated from one another, when these forces affect a local young woman (Isla Johnston, listed as “The Stranger”) that The Boy bonds with, and presents all disturbing images of a grim future. The Carpenter in particular struggles with his place in this story, sometimes berating his child he doesn't completely grasp.

Controversy and Care

The subject matter is apt to stir disagreement, and Nathan approaches it with a lot of delicacy — overly, perhaps. The notion of a adolescent facing his future martyrdom and lured by mysterious forces is certainly frightening, but the filmmaker might be cautious about seeming gratuitous and anxious to signal his intentions, thus he frequently withdraws to gloomily threatening filming. Characters constantly ponder — FKA Twigs, who showed real promise in the 2024 Crow remake, of all things — yields her role to her religious attire, occasionally interrupted by a few disturbing frightening scenes.

Cage's Portrayal and Movie's Shortcomings

At the same time, Cage toy with exactly the kind of melodramatic acting that his more snickering appreciators may desire. One scene (also included) in previews in which he loses control and screams “I’ve lost my faith!” Should such of florid outburst is a component of a religious scary film, perhaps a more brazenly silly approach would make better use of his eagerness to be extreme as required. Instead, The Carpenter’s Son is closer to the poorer direct-to-video productions the actor filmed through much of the last decade — apart from the B-movies but rather the narrative films and ghost stories that typically appear interesting, and frequently include some select actor's highlights, but finally come across like, frankly, cheap home video fare.

Frankly, several of these, while less ambitious, were more entertaining in general. At this point I must violate my own dogma, not religious but career-related: Years back, an admired senior urged me to remove words like “tedious” or “uninteresting” from my film-criticism vocabulary. These words communicate minimal but a individual and generically described impatience, avoiding the task of vividly conveying the mental and emotional experience of seeing an individual production. It's challenging to communicate tedium without appearing dull personally. It's equally vague as labeling a movie “interesting.” “Explain further,” that is.

However, I admit, I was bored throughout The Carpenter’s Son. In its defense, it’s a churchy kind of stultification, not due to The Carpenter’s Son is lecturing, but because it takes a kind of patient acceptance to view it. At some point early on, the film enters a cyclic tempo of simmering anguish, and never really