Every year in the glut of Christmas movies that make it to screens big and small, there’s usually 1 or 2 that will stand out. Anna and the Apocalypse was the winner a few years ago. Klaus was a revelation in 2019. In general, the bolder the movie, the more it will usually stand out. I’m certain the winner in 2023 will be Journey to Bethlehem, trying their best to get you into the Christmas Spirit. The REAL Christmas spirit.
The OG Christmas spirit, in fact. Mary (Fiona Palomo) is put into an arranged marriage to Joseph (Milo Manheim). Both seem equally unhappy with this: Joseph wants to invent things, and Mary wants a life of her own. God throws a wrinkle into the proceedings, as Gabriel (Lecrae) informs Mary she will give birth to humanity’s savior, which Joseph certainly has a hard time believing. At the same time 3 wisemen (Rizwan Manji, Geno Segers, and Omid Djalili) from the East follow the celestial lights to Judah, and inform King Herod (Antonio Banderas) and his son Antipater (Joel Smallbone) that a new baby King is about to be born, which, um, doesn’t exactly sit well with the insecure vain leader.
It’s the musical choice that instantly made me excited for Journey to Bethlehem. Why go through an arduous morally confusing journey when you can sing about it instead? This leads the husband and wife creative team to make some really strange, fun creative choices that give the movie a lot of pop. King Herod’s bedroom is perfect: he sleeps in the mouth of a giant Aladdin like Lion sand sculpture, with horrifying red eyes. Get it? He’s evil and crazy! How does the movie capture Joseph’s internal conflict about Mary’s pregnancy? 5 words: Musical Fight Sequence…With HIMSELF! Hell yeah! And I also took for granted how truly wonderfully insane Luke 2 verses 13-16 would look in movie form. There’s even happy accidents: the low budget this movie has actually fits the simple, stripped down story it’s portraying, making it a little sweeter as a result. The lack of irony in Journey to Bethlehem jives wildly with the musical elements wonderfully, as a completely sincere shepherd girl singing Silent Night is treated as seriously as anything else this movie does.
And the cast is really giving it their all. Fiona Palomo and Milo Manheim really sell their characters dramatic arcs about crises of faith at some point you stop rolling your eyes. Rizwan Manji, Geno Egers, and Omid Djalili do what they can with the mediocre jokes written for them. Joel Smallbone does a sneaky good job as Herod’s son. And there’s the Oscar Nominated Antonio Banderas, who could have phoned in this performance, but instead fully, and truly, commits to the bit, playing Herod as a narcissistic deranged malcontent with juicy wonderful aplomb. Banderas’s presence probably helped everyone lock in, and give Journey to Bethlehem some respect it earns by its commitment to getting the story of Jesus’s birth as right as musically possible.
By the end of the earwormy opening number, Journey to Bethlehem had me. For any non Christians out there, this is your chance to see how the more devout believers see Biblical stories. And for the faith based audiences, this movie is going to deliver and then some, a thankfully pious treat in a season that too often commercialize its beginnings out of existence.