Review – Light of the World

I can’t imagine the challenge that comes with attempting to adapt the gospel into a contemporary film. Not only are you going to face the predicament of being original in the light of a century of existing cinematic adaptations of the life of Christ, but you’re going to face criticism either for violating the second command and in adapting the gospels, or criticism of heresy from various sects. The world will be disinterested in it, and fellow Christians will scour every frame of the film for errors. Catholics and Presbyterians will be quicker to attack such a film than atheists.

In light of that, it is interesting that new takes are being made. Given Angel Studios’ recent animated film The King of Kings and the incredible mainstream success of The Chosen, stories of the gospel are gaining some traction in the media, and showing that original takes can be made. Just last year, roughly forty Christian movies were released in theaters. Evangelical Christians are once again taking the lead in spreading the gospel through the arts, and their works are becoming more interesting!

Content Guide

Violence/Scary Images: PG content, including some depictions of death, violence, and political oppression.
Language/Crude Humor: None.
Drug/Alcohol References: Characters drink wine on screen.
Sexual Content: None.
Spiritual Content: The film is a dramatization of Christ’s ministry and touches upon some of the theological components of baptism, atonement, and the nature of Christ.
Other Negative Content: Some content non-evangelical Christians might find theologically questionable. A few dark sequences that might frighten young viewers.
Positive Content: The film is a very positive depiction of Christ’s ministry, produced by fellow Christians, and tells a positive story of how God works in our lives through unexpected and sometimes disappointing ways.

Review

I’m old enough to remember when animated Christian television was almost entirely low-budget straight-to-DVD movies like Adventures in Odyssey and Bible Man. Christians have always been ambitious in their desire to take advantage of new media for spreading the gospel. Producing GOOD entertainment, though, has always been superfluous to that mission, rather preferring to create family-friendly content that Christians can share with their kids. They’ve always operated as a small parallel economy for socially isolated Christians, less than evangelists, finding effective ways to speak to secular culture.

This is what makes a film like Light of the World fascinating to me. It’s not even the first, nor the largest budget animated film to adapt the life of Jesus this year. And yet, its modestly budgeted intentions are well realized. It finds an interesting angle to retell the story of Christ’s ministry, stringing the major events of the Gospel into a unique story from the perspective of one of his youngest followers.

The film functions as a kind of pseudo-origin story for the Apostle John, imagining the disciple as a 14-year-old boy with a child’s conception of the Messiah. The movie cleverly imagines the story of Christ as a drama of expectations, dramatizing the story through flash forwards of the Messiah that the Jews imagined he would be, as opposed to who he was, and creating drama through the realization that God isn’t going to come in the way we may expect.

When he accidentally loses his father’s fishing money, which he needs to pay the local tax collector, Matthew, John begins to fear that his failure has doomed his father to a Roman prison. Learning from his brother James that the Messiah may be nearby, baptizing in the Jordan River, he goes on a quest to find his brother and seek help from the nascent conqueror. When he discovers, though, that the Messiah is just a local carpenter, he slowly begins to watch that man’s miracles change hearts, repair broken bodies, and fulfill the promises of his people in ways they could have never imagined.

As a child, John imagines Jesus as a great warrior on a horse who will march into Jerusalem and declare himself king. This is tied intricately to his motivation by showing the practical realities of Roman oppression, with his family being cruelly taxed to the point of imprisonment. John has very practical reasons for following Christ, but as the plot unfolds, he begins to see the difference between thinking of the world as a problem to be solved and now a darkness in need of light.

It’s well rooted in the psychological duality between a character’s wants and needs, and part of good writing is about helping a character learn that the thing they need is more important than the thing they want. John’s character motivations are well justified from the story’s outset, but the slow unfolding of that drama gives weight to its dramatic highs and lows.

Admittedly, most of my criticisms are nitpicks, from its hilariously Baptist-coded theology (with John the Baptist repeatedly declaring that Baptism is JUST A SYMBOL), to some occassional stiffness and details in the digital 2D animation, and some strange choices to exclude Bible stories that could enrich the narrative or build upon what we know of John’s entire life from scripture (John 19:25-27 felt like an obvious omission given Mary’s prominence but probably would’ve felt too Catholic-coded).

John holds great significance in the gospels as one of Jesus’ closest friends, the most intimate and profound of the gospel writers, and the (likely) receiver of the Revelation on Patmos, but none of this plays into the film’s story. Additionally, the film has a habit of making the story feel smaller, turning a three-year ministry into a few weeks of walking and hanging out.

Conversely, many of its dramatic license decisions are very clever, such as making Joseph of Arimathea blind to serve as a counterexample to Caiaphas’ disbelief. For as much story as the film skimmed, the stuff they kept in is well executed.

As a low budget animated film, funded by a non-profit ministry, Light of the World is an impressive show that manages the feat of telling a nominally original story about Christ and doing it in a visually interesting approach, with much of its best animation utilizing unique methods to depict the more abstract parts of scripture in visually splendid ways (I especially liked the visualization of the Holy Spirit upon Christ’s baptism, appearing as a glowing, contorted, but overwhelmingly beautiful dove that impresses the power of that moment).

All adaptations of the gospel are ultimately insufficient and hardly a replacement for the real thing. However, a good Jesus film can help make that story feel novel again, seeing it through fresh eyes. This film’s core duality of light and darkness gives the film a strong foundation to make Jesus’ actions feel fresh and impactful. Despite being a kid-friendly family film, the desperation these characters feel for a savior is met in the miracles of Christ, and seeing hopeless blind people awaken to his truth gives Christ a sense of imminence and joy. It’s a loving and sweet depiction of the gospel and easily my favorite this year!