Noah- a movie review (kinda)

I’m not going to give you a spoiler alert. I think it’s safe to say that we all pretty much know the story.
But we’ve been planning to go see the new Noah movie for quite awhile anyway.
I’m not sure what we expected- Let me just say that it was interesting.
Don’t you think it’s a little dangerous and, let’s face it, interesting to see what Hollywood is going to do with a biblical character?  After all, this is one of the first stories that we tell the little Sunday school children. It’s a story we can tell without reading it. Whether or not we believe that it happened exactly as written or if we think of the story as a kind of metaphor, it’s foundational to the way we think about our relationship to the Creator. We look in the sky and see a rainbow and we’re reminded of the covenant God made and continues to make with us about how God will care for us in this place.
Here is what I enjoyed.
I liked the “realness” of the characters; the conflict on the ark between the people, their doubts, their questions, their mistakes, their obvious faith, their strength and their courage.
What I didn’t particularly like.
Perhaps I’m ignorant,  but I think Hollywood added some extra characters. I liked the characters, but I think they might have confused the story a bit. Heck, they confused me!
If I think about the “facts” of the story, the things spoken of in the bible, I wonder if the point of the movie misses God’s point almost entirely. Because I think the point of the story is how much God loves us.
Wouldn’t it have been easier to wipe out everything and completely start over without the people. Sure, you see Noah conflicted in this way in the movie but it’s his thought not God’s that resolves the conflict.
Oh, one more thing I liked.
I liked that I was compelled to go home and reread the story in a variety of translations and discuss the movie with my friends and family. I liked that it may stir up conversations in other places, with different people and opinions. Maybe if we get to talking about these things it might lead to conversations about other important things. Maybe we can stop shouting at each other across the aisles and let a little light into the dark places.
Go see the movie Noah even if you don’t think it’s biblically accurate, even if you think the bible is myth. Start a conversation. You can talk to me here. Let me know what you thought about it.
We’ll talk more later,
Gayle