As opposed to last month’s film, which featured dramas that can be presumed and inferred but are not in the Gospels Son of God deals solely with stories from the Bible, most of which are very well known.

I knew that in liking Son of God in spite of some of its sketchiness, incessant gravitas and occasional bouts of television (This film was spliced from a TV Mini-Series called The Bible), I would be in a minority.

Its tonality and casting of leading roles are among its strengths, namely Diogo Morgado, despite his occasional accent lapses; Adrian Schiller as Caiaphas, whose scenes are a persistent highlight of the film; and Greg Hicks who does great things in the thankless role of the sinfully noncommittal Pilate.

The film does try to be a bit too inclusive in the narrative and that creates some issues, but in covering the life of Jesus in a cradle-to-grave format you’re bound to have a tug-of-war between being too sparse or too packed. It’s an unenviable task the film deals with well. As for the aforementioned gravitas, with a tale of this nature that’s the better side of the equation to err on, however, it’s only somewhat lessened by that fact rather than ruined by it like some films can be

Back in 2014, when it was released, I included it in my blog’s year-end awards. It earned a BAM nomination for Best Art Direction. Son of God is available to stream on Netflix or to own on physical and digital media.