Black Nativity, is a 2013 offering with an all-star cast that turns out to be (urgh) another musical and, not dissimilar to Rent (double urgh), it is all a bit much. This hip-hop flavoured film tells the tale of Langston (Jacob Latimore), the streetsmart son of a struggling Baltimore mother who’s sent to Harlem for vague reasons to stay with his pastor Grandfather, Reverend Cornell Cobbs (Forrest Whitaker).
Once in the Big Apple, the surly teen moans a bit, rebels against his well-intentioned grandparents and crosses paths with dodgy pawn shop worker ‘Loot’ (Tyrese Gibsone). We get a whole load of Langston sulking about how gramps can live with himself while his daughter lives a life of poverty and temptation presents itself as the kid considers turning to crime to solve his mother’s money problems.
There’s a lot of MTV video style singing about faith, destiny and impoverishment that pads out the slight story’s runtime. Like most faith-based films, it’s full of food intentions while suffering from a contrived and unfeasibly melodramatic script. Very loosely based on a 1961 ‘gospel song play’, Kassi Lemmons’ film shoots for deep, gobsmacking revelation but just comes across as daft.
You can bet your yule log that all the main players will come together to thrash out their family issues - on stage, no less - in front of the huge church crowd at Christmas. When the revelation about Langston’s parentage is dropped, I feel compelled to shout “Oh, bugger off!” As I said, it’s definitely a bit much. Some half-decent work accomplished by solid staging and some excellent singing is, for me, completely undone by trite, overly-earnest performances and the wilful ridiculousness of the whole project, the film attempting to draw parallels between Langston’s own birth and the Nativity story itself.
Watching this, my eyes ache from rolling, though the film does provoke numerous unintentional laughs with the overly heartfelt hackiness of practically every musical number. I’m confused as to what message the film is trying to convey. Something about practising what you preach and that singing lots of soulful songs can bring families back together? I’m really not sure, though it does all at least look great. It’s not for me.
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