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The acclaimed actor is likely the ideal selection for a bold scary movie focused on the biblical figure, however not for the causes certain fans may think. In reality, Cage doesn't even play Jesus in The Carpenter’s Son: his role is referred to simply as a craftsman. The actor is framed as a father figure in this narrative, working to uphold his religious convictions while the teenage character (played by Noah Jupe), his now-teenage foster child, commences to exhibit divine powers. The explanation it's challenging to envision a different major actor in this role is that even as the role becomes burdened with multiple trials, Nicolas Cage looks practically touchingly convinced that this gloomy, somber little movie is a valuable project.

The Actor's Latest Career Choices

Cage has been spending that time more selectively recently. He yet makes more films than the majority of average viewers may ever watch — for example, were you informed that the man has completed several separate frontier films over the last few years? — however he also adds high-profile independent films such as Dream Scenario, Pig, and Longlegs. The Carpenter’s Son seems like in that category, as it’s not strictly scary, possibly controversial, and approaches a campy-sounding concept quite seriously.

The Film's Storyline and Handling

Sadly, writer-director Lotfy Nathan does not reward viewer engagement. The Carpenter’s Son starts from a engagingly rootless setting, marketed as based on an apocryphal lost gospel regarding the early years of Jesus. The Carpenter, the maternal figure, and their child travel constantly, afraid of religious persecution or distrust over The Boy’s mysterious gifts. “Disaster trails us,” Cage sadly observes. That continues when dark forces focus on the family at their new home, getting a jump-start on the traditional religious challenge for The Boy.

At times, the film resembles an Exorcist-style supernatural thriller, but no one of the main figures are directly possessed. Rather, they are more and more distant from each other, as these forces infect a local young woman (the actress, named “The Stranger”) who the son connects to, and provides all disturbing images of a dark tomorrow. The Carpenter especially grapples with his position in the narrative, at times berating the son who mystifies him.

Controversy and Sensitivity

The subject matter is likely to stir disagreement, and Nathan approaches it with a lot of delicacy — excessive, perhaps. The notion of a young man facing his eventual sacrifice and seduced by dark influences is indeed frightening, but Nathan may be hesitant regarding seeming gratuitous and eager to indicate his intentions, thus he frequently withdraws to dimly foreboding cinematography. The figures continually reflect — FKA Twigs, who showed real promise in a recent film update, of all things — surrenders her performance to her religious attire, occasionally interrupted by some gnarly horror imagery.

Cage's Performance and Movie's Flaws

At the same time, the actor dabbles in exactly the kind of overacting that his ironic fans could be expecting. There is a moment (shown) in promotional material in which he loses control and screams “My faith has been shattered!” When this sort of dramatic explosion is included in your biblical thriller, possibly a more brazenly silly approach would make better use of Cage’s willingness to go over the top as required. Instead, The Carpenter’s Son echoes the poorer low-budget movies he starred in during the last decade — not the cheesy thrillers instead the narrative films and paranormal movies that always sound promising, and usually have some select Cage moments, but in the end seem like, well, cheap home video fare.

Honestly, some of those, though not as grand, were easier to view overall. At this point I need to disregard my own dogma, not religious but work-oriented: Long ago, an admired senior convinced me to eliminate adjectives like “monotonous” or “lifeless” from my film-criticism vocabulary. These words communicate minimal other than a personal and generically described lack of patience, withdrawing from the duty of vibrantly communicating the thoughtful and sensation of seeing an individual production. It's challenging to communicate monotony without seeming uninteresting oneself. It’s no more expressive as terming a movie “notable.” “Elaborate,” essentially.

Yet, I acknowledge, I grew weary throughout The Carpenter’s Son. To the movie’s non-exploitative credit, it’s a devotional type of dullness, not because this movie is preachy, but since it requires a kind of patient acceptance to sit through it. After a while early on, this feature enters a monotonous pattern of simmering distress, and fails to