Noah Review

Living with his family in self-imposed isolation from the rest of humanity, a man has a vision from God that the world will be drowned to make way for a new beginning. Believing that he must save all animal life from the flood, the man sets out to build a massive vessel capable of surviving the wrath of the Creator.  Noah by Darren Aronofsky, much like the famous ark in the story, is rough around the edges and held together with raw materials, yet contains with in it admirable components. Ultimately this film comes across as underdeveloped and overly ambitious.

                The world in which Noah and his family live is a dark, dirty, and brutal place where life is cheap and often ends violently and senselessly. Man has disobeyed the Creator of the world and has been banished from a garden of paradise. There are themes of environmentalism throughout. Noah and his family take only what they need to survive, which doesn’t include the meat of animals. They live away from other people, trying to make their way through their lives as humbly as possible. In this way there’s a kind of rural vs. city thing going on. The men that Noah hides from are killers and eaters of animals with a society that seems to revolve around mining. Man’s corruption of the Earth and the purity of nature are emphasized at every turn.

                The best parts of Noah almost all come from the second half, once we get on the boat. A truly chilling moment occurs when Noah and his family try to have dinner while the screams of drowning people hang over them. Aronofsky has succeded in crafting a film that gives us a deeper insight into what a man in Noah’s predicament could have gone through. The film weighs the issues of mercy and judgment and pushes its main character to the breaking point and beyond.

                Unfortunately many of the film’s subplots, including the villainous intents of Ray Winstone, a love story for Noah’s son Ham, and fallen angels known as the Watchers don’t pay off and feel undercooked. Winstone plays a king descended from Cain who isn’t given enough time to really develop beyond a cardboard villain who might as well be twirling a thick mustache.  The Watchers, apart from looking cheap, have shades of character but again, their place in the film’s story is ultimately too tangential to inspire much interest in them.

                Noah has grand themes, but it’s most successful when it turns into a tense family drama about a man in an extremely difficult position. In some ways it’s a small story stretched too far. The core of what’s here is fine, and worth experiencing, but the audience has to sift through several underdeveloped aspects to get to it.