<p><i>?The Nativity Story?</i><br>Director Catherine Hardwicke<br>New Line Cinema<br><img src=http://www.dailybruin.com/ae/paw.jpg width=25><img src=http://www.dailybruin.com/ae/paw.jpg width=25><img src=http://www.dailybruin.com/ae/paw.jpg width=25> <br/>?The Nativity Story? is an exercise in verisimilitude and historical perfection. <br/>Each costume, each dirty fingernail, and each Middle Eastern city is created with rigorous care. Yet it is not only an elaborate costume party; each actor appears to honestly inhabit his or her role. Every frame is brimming with authenticity. <br/>Unfortunately, ?The Nativity Story? does not always communicate to its audience the passion that clearly went into it. Often, it feels dull and even lifeless. <br/>The plot is pretty much faithful to its source material. Mary, played by ?Whale Rider? Oscar nominee Keisha Castle-Hughes, is a simple teenager who becomes pregnant with the boy who will grow to be Jesus Christ. The father is, of course, no mere mortal, but God himself. When her husband Joseph is forced to travel 100 miles to Bethlehem on account of a Roman-instituted census, she goes with him, and so begins their long journey. <br/>It?s a story millions know by heart, and director Catherine Hardwicke (?Thirteen?) is as respectful to it as she can possibly be. But she?s so respectful that the film continually gets mired in a mundane swamp of cliche and compromise. ?The Nativity Story? takes not one risk, and it suffers as a result. <br/>Pivotal sequences are played out with curious detachment. When Mary first meets the archangel Gabriel, Mary does not seem even slightly surprised. In fact, she doesn?t seem to feel anything at all. There is no awe, shock or reverence in her expression. She just seems sedated. <br/>Most of the dialogue isn?t any more involving. It?s all typical historical epic-speak: portentous declarations and unnatural statements which drive the story forth with minimal subtlety and maximum comprehensiveness. <br/>Even the villains are uninspiring. King Herod (Ciarn Hinds from ?Munich?) and his Roman soldiers are all stereotypically evil caricatures. They hardly seem human and, therefore, their sins hold no moral weight. <br/>But the film survives despite its many problems. <br/>The beautiful cinematography notably and aptly depicts the long voyage and palpable landscape, and finally, it is Oscar Isaac?s revelatory performance as Joseph that is most worthy of mention. He emerges as the unlikely emotional core of the film, endowing even the most trivial of sequences with warmth. Thanks to Isaac, the movie gains a final epic sweep. He grounds the movie in personal reality and his journey seems all the more significant for it. <br/><hr><div align=center><img src=/images/2006/9/29/Ratings.jpg></div></p><br><br><a href='; target='_blank'>;