Black Nativity movie review & film summary (2013)
Although Jo-Jo and Maria are a young couple looking for a manger, "Black Nativity" ultimately isn't about birth, but rebirth: of Langston and his family, of Harlem, and by extension America. Lemmons' script presents Harlem as a Dickensian world of haves and have-nots, struggling beneath the twin shadows of entrenched racism and economic inequality. The film often pauses to lament that a privileged few should have so much while so many have so little. Because the cast is predominately African-American, there's an element of self-critique in the story. Langston's grandparents are proud of their role in the political tumult of the 1960s (the Rev. tells Langston that he's one of the last anointed rhetorical disciples of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, and has an inscribed watch to prove it), but the movie subtly chides them for withdrawing from the troubles of the present day. Langston surveys his grandfather and grandmother's lushly furnished brownstone with a mix of awe, envy and disgust, thinking of his own mom's scrapping and how much easier life might have been if they'd had more help, or at least more love and understanding. There's an undercurrent of anger in "Black Nativity," rooted in the sense that an older generation has given up on its successors and withdrawn into a disdainful shell. If Langston, two generations removed from Cornell and Aretha, is indeed at risk of becoming part of the underclass, it's not soley his own fault, nor his mother's, nor that of the dominant culture. It takes a village to raise a child, and this one has fallen apart.
The film's dramatic scenes are broken up by lengthy musical numbers—a mix of spirituals, rhythm-and-blues tinged Christmas carols, pop, and rap, all orchestrated by Raphael Saddiq in a manner that suggests a rehearsal for an immense Broadway musical. Much of "Black Nativity" plays like a filmed record of that nonexistent production, transplanted to actual New York streets. Although the movie's 35mm film images have a pleasingly old-school richness, Lemmons doesn't stage the musical numbers in dynamic or meaningful ways. Her direction is more along the lines of such recent filmed musicals as "Chicago" or "Nine," or Fox's "Glee": uninflected shots of people singing and dancing, with occasional flourishes, such as a cliched 360-degree spin meant to convey rapturous joy.
Some of the numbers are merely serviceable, others superb, and at least two—“Hush Child (Get You Through This Silent Night)," performed by Latimore, Hudson, Grace and Gibson, and "Motherless Child," performed by Latimore—are instant Yuletide classics. The performances are equally hit-and-miss. Whitaker's old-movie elocutions are too Christmas-hammy, but the buried regret in his eyes makes the character achingly real. Bassett's acting is technically impeccable and often heartbreaking, even though she's the main cast's weakest musical link. (Hudson, Gibson and Blige are the strongest.) Latimore is likable but not forceful or nuanced enough. Hudson is, as always, a bit of a blank, but there's something so real about her that she makes an impression anyway, whether she's singing, speaking or just sitting there thinking.
