PG | Rottentomatoes.com Rating:57% | 2007 |
(Three instances of mild languages) | Picky Flicks Quote: "Noelle is an engagingly low-key, Christian-skewing indie" -Joe Leydon, Variety | RUNTIME: 90 min. |
Visit:www.screenit.com for complete details | Movie Mood:  Peaceful |
The main character of Noëlle is a priest named John Keene, but the fact that he’s the protagonist (and a religious one at that) doesn’t make him particularly likable. In fact, one character describes him as the “worst priest” she has “ever met.” He’s gruff, cold, and has a bad habit of wrinkling his nose at the concept of prayer (he’s played by David Wall who directed and produced this movie in addition to starring in it and who, if you squint only the tiniest bit, is a dead ringer for a young Robert Redford, but I suppose that’s a little beside the point).
Father Keene is a Catholic “hatchet man,” sent to struggling parishes to evaluate their financial viability and, if need be, shut them down. As he admits at one point, he can close down a church in his sleep, but it’s the “people side of things” that he hates. Well, I guess he would have to since, when the movie starts, Christmas is only days away, and he’s been sent to take a potentially fatal swing at the ailing parish of old seminary chum, Father Simeon Joyce.
Noëlle opens with several shots of a picturesque, snowy northeastern fishing village that highlight both its beauty and its isolation. Not much is shaking round these parts, and the pickings at mass are pretty slim—just a handful of toes in the grave die-hards and one young-ish, pretty-ish town librarian who doesn’t like priests because, as she puts it, they have issues with women…except Mary, of course.
In a whopping stretch of a plot development, instead of just closing the doors of an obviously dead church, Father Keene suggests a live nativity scene as a community draw. Supposedly, everyone in the surrounding area will be chomping at the bit to see a bunch of geezers with hip and knee replacements not kneel in the snow, and—Ta Da!—the church will be saved. Uh huh. Anyway, plausibility aside, the ensuing “casting” sessions, which laid-back, hard-drinking (yeah, that’s right, he’s no teetotaler) Father Simeon conducts, are mildly hilarious. Funky Irish and various and sundry Northern accents abound, and the youngest contender for the part of the Virgin Mary—well, let’s just say that she can see her fortieth birthday waaaay back in her rearview mirror somewhere.
Oh, but there is Marjorie, the librarian. She could pass for Mary. But why didn’t anybody but Father Keene think of that, and why is she so quick to show up at mass but balks so at the prospect of playing the virgin mother of God? And what exactly is her relationship to a guy who keeps hanging around and is rumored to be her fiancé but treats her like so much garbage? Aw, now, if I answered all those questions, you wouldn’t go watch the movie for yourself, now would you?
Noëlle is a simple, modest effort. The director’s wife, Kerry Wall, plays Marjorie, and his daughter has a significant role as well. David and Kerry Wall are both quite good—considerably more natural, in fact, than many Hollywood starlets such as Cameron Diaz and Drew Barrymore, for example. And while the rest of the cast is considerably less polished, that’s okay. It’s a sweet movie with a gentle message (it tries to be hip and poke fun at the traditional order of religious things, but it’s not very good at it). There are several genuinely amusing moments and even at least one moving scene that rings true. Sadly enough, that’s more than I can say for a lot of movies with much bigger budgets.
Noëlle also has a very good point to make about the sanctity of life and the power of guilt (the deserved kind) to shape the course of your entire life if you’re not careful in your decisions. Hardcore pro-abortion(ers) will object, but this is not their kind of movie anyway, and they’d be overreacting. It’s simply not in-your-face enough to warrant too much objection, and its feel-good ending and happy-go-lucky message of peace on earth, good will toward men are so general as to be almost (regrettably) divorced from its Christmas context. Even so, it’s an enjoyable and admirable film, definitely worth adding to your holiday list for next year (or this, if you want Christmas to go on and on and on and…oh, is it just me that thinks that it’s really time for the desserts to go away?)
Happy New Year, by the way!
Until next Wednesday stay picky. Your mind will thank you later!
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