The Noah Film: How to Respond

I loved John Grisham’s book, The Firm. But my husband, Gary, never read it. Consequently, whenhe and I watched the movie together, I disliked what Hollywood had done to thestory. But Gary, unfamiliar with the plot in the original, really liked themovie version. In fact, for some strange reason it annoyed him when I constantlyinterrupted the film to whisper, “That’s not how it happened in the book! Thebook was way better!” In fact, he finally, kindly, asked me to be quiet so hecould just enjoy the film.

As the saying goes, “Never judge a book by its movie.”

Hollywood’s new telling of a story and butchering some ofthe original in the process is nothing new. It’s not persecution. It’s not intentional irreverence. It’s thechallenge of taking a form of narrative that allows backstory and interiordialogue and moving it to a form that allows only for show-show-show. Oh. Andit’s also about what will make the most money.

Complicating the dynamic in the case of the Noah filmreleasing today is the fact that this story is thousands of years old. And thatmeans the writer of Genesis didn’t tell stories the way Westerners do. Thestory structure of the three-paneled beginning-middle-end, to which we are soaccustomed, is only about as old as Aristotle, who lived in the fourth centuryB.C. That’s thousands of years afterNoah—and Moses, who recorded Noah’s story.

See the problem? Taking an apple story and making it into anorange narrative requires making some “creative decisions” that those who love thebook version will dislike. A lot. Especially because the book in question isnot just some author’s story. It’s theauthor’s story.   

But think about it…even when Christians produce Biblestories, we sigh and wish they’d stop messing with the text. Consider all theobjections to The Bible TV series.

Not only does the typical movie structure of storytellingrequire changing an original to shoehorn it into the contemporary structure.It also requires filling in some details the written story didn’t give. Like theidentity of the Prince of Egypt’s faither. And whether someone gave Jesus’smother a cloth to wipe his blood. And how much Noah said “God.” 

We can argue all day about whether such a dynamic ought tobe so. It's the reality. So what do we do with thatreality?

Here’s what we don’t do: We don’t assume we’re beingpersecuted because someone changed our story. We don’t wail because the filmdoesn’t mention God. (The Esther story never mentions God, and we still got thepoint.) We don’t write long lists of where the producers got it wrong. And wedon’t complain, as one person did, that the writer took a nice man and made himout to be a drunk. (Ps-s-t: That drunk part’s actually in the original.)

Here’s a better way: If we can do so in good conscience, wepatronize the arts when they tell our story, even if they do so imperfectly.Even though the Mel Gibson version of The Passion of the Christ took somecreative license, that movie is the highest-grossing non-English-language filmof all time, and the U.S.’s highest-grossing R-rated film ever. Ever. And suddenly LA’s greed has workedin our favor, because the film’s financial success got Hollywood asking aboutwhat Christians want. And remember, Hollywood hadn’t done that for a while. Notsince about the time of Ben-Hur. Orat least that’s what TIME magazinereported in its March 31 edition. TIME alsoreported that Jonathan Bock of GraceHill Media "believes the momentum behind faith-based films is more thanjust a blip in Hollywood… It's a return of the Christian community's role as apatron of the arts."

In terms of our interactions with others about the film, wealso highly recommend the original. We say, “Yeah, the movie was maybe a goodstart. But the book version is way better—especiallyif you read the entire backstory starting from the beginning. Want to borrow mycopy?”

Just don’t say all this while they’re watching the movie. Atleast wait till they get out of the theater.