‘Noah’ doesn’t overreach

Kyle+Arensdorf

Kyle Arensdorf

By Kyle Arensdorf

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3/4 stars.

I struggle over whether to call Darren Aronofsky’s latest film “Noah” an adapted screenplay or an original screenplay. I can only say that it’s the closest a script can get to an original screenplay without actually being an original screenplay. Or as Aronofsky puts it, it’s “the least-biblical biblical film ever made.”

The story of Noah is told within a few chapters of the book of Genesis. So creating a 138-minute epic — especially one that spans the course of several years — calls for some sort of fabrication to give it the legs it needs to stand on.

These legs come in the form of fictional characters such as celestial guardians sent to watch over mankind called the “Watchers,” and a young girl (Emma Watson) orphaned by a mass killing of her people.

A secondary plotline is based around Watson’s character and is used to drive the second act of the film. While I won’t disclose the particulars, there’s a variable that Noah (Russell Crowe) must decipher while still yielding to what he perceives to be the commands of “The Creator.”

While aspects of the film are completely fabricated, Aronofsky said he wanted to make sure the film was still “truthful to every word that’s in (the Bible).” If you reference Genesis 7:13 of the King James Bible, you’ll notice that Aronofsky doesn’t exactly stay true to his statement.

Despite this small oversight, his interpretation of what have happened is completely plausible, and coincides directly with the sort of revolt and scorn that prophets could have dealt with in their efforts to do what they thought was right.

Abraham, another noted prophet from the Bible, faced the same sort of persecution and contempt from his people and family when he put the wishes of God before the needs of the masses.

“Noah” is an overall successful venture that all but cements Aronofsky’s place as an auteur of our generation, with his films reaching out to other-worldly bearings as a way to answer finite worldly questions.

He begins “Noah” with a brief introduction of the creation and fall of man, told through voiced-over sequences reminiscent of a Terrence Malick film.

The similarities between Aronofsky and Malick, one of the most noted auteurs in film, are striking — namely their constant quest to encompass the “big” questions and the role that human frailty plays in the answers to those questions.

“Noah” is hard to watch, as it is a dark interpretation of the story. But it illuminates the internal struggle, as well as the external persecution, that must have come from communication with a higher power.