The Chosen: Season One
Director: Dallas Jenkins
Writer: Dallas Jenkins, Ryan Swanson, Tyler Thompson
Starring: Shahar Isaac, Jonathan Roumie, Para Patel, Noah James, Erick Avari, Elizabeth Tabish, Brandon Potter
Reason for watching: My college roommate Kevin forced it down my throat until I realized it was actually good.
Number of times I’ve watched it: first time viewing.
***
First of all, I have learned something about my friends and family. They all know I love movies and TV shows. And they know they can ask me anything about movies, and I will likely have an answer or be willing to hear what they have to say about it. Example, today my Dad asked me when the Top Gun sequel is coming out, and I didn’t know exactly but I was able to tell in a minute after I looked it up. But also, I have learned if a loved one is really insistent on me seeing a movie (and I mean insistent to the point of annoyance), it is going to be a good thing to watch that is worth my time. The success rate is 100%. My sister asked me if I had seen Escape Room one hundred times straight when I would come home from college or living away from my parents’ house. I finally watched it, and it was good.
Okay, but we’re talking about The Chosen right now. The Chosen. The show that broke the crowdfunding records of Mystery Science Theater and Veronica Mars. It pulled in a cool $10,000,000 for the first season. That’s also more money than Tom Brady ever made in a single season when he was winning six rings for the New England Patriots. The show that my college roommate Kevin beat my brains in to watch and who requested this blog post. This is also the same Kevin who watched a bunch of Oscar bait with me and didn’t terminate our friendship. The show that decided to turn the life of Jesus into a multi-season story. No show has ever attempted that (although Mel Gibson is still trying to make a sequel to The Passion of the Christ). And simultaneously this show manages to do something that no Christian-based project has ever done: it humanizes Jesus.
I am a Christian, and hand to God, Christian shows and movies are not often of high quality. God’s Not Dead is terrible and offensive the very non-believers we as Christians are trying to love and save. The aforementioned Passion of the Christ glorifies violence and gore. While I love Facing the Giants’ message of turning your life over and having faith, it broadcasts a terrible message that if you DO turn full control of your life to God that everything will turn around for you (and you’ll win a state championship on a field goal from a backup kicker). And all of those movies and many more in the Christian genre are even worse for their not being a single deeply human character. That’s where The Chosen succeeds.
We see the human struggles of these characters. Peter is down on his luck and owes an insurmountable amount of money to the Roman occupiers. Matthew is an outcast and socially-lacking tax collector his own people deemed a traitor. Mary was demon-possessed and certainly suffering form a number of terrible mental illnesses. But their differences and struggles are overlooked as they turn into a family because of Jesus.
Man, Jonathan Roumie, who plays Jesus of Nazareth, delivers strongly in this show; and the writers do not make the Son of Man unreachable. For years in church I was taught that God was 100% man and 100% God. Which I understood spiritually but never really could grasp that topic. Because the Bible doesn’t exactly paint Jesus as a joke teller or a charming fellow. He has long monologues and speaks in vague phrases at times. Certainly, I don’t understood all of the phrases either. But what those writers do is make Jesus someone who this merry band of misfits want to spend time with and follow. He’s human and relatable. He has conflicts internally. When He first turns the water into wine and says these words to His mother, “My time has not yet come,” He isn’t speaking as an unearthly God who knows all. He speaks as someone who has fear about the chain of events that His first miracle will set in motion. He’s a man. And that’s what we needed to know about Jesus. That He walked in my shoes too.
There’s a few issues here at there. The early pacing is a little slow. The characters are difficult to keep track of early on as well. Plus the overwhelming might of the Romans looms a little too large at times, and the main Roman officer we see is perhaps too cartoonish. But these are small flaws in my mind. The cinematography is intimate and well-done. The dialogue is believable for being based some 2000 years ago. Particularly, I love the conversation that Jesus has with the woman at the well in Samaria. And the ensemble cast is excellent.
So far, this movie is the best Christian-based project I have seen since The Prince of Egypt.
8/10
Until I see another one.
PS - I hope you read this one to the end, Kevin.