The Carpenter’s Son review

By David Dent

Lotfy Nathan’s strange, often impenetrable religio-horror movie opens with a maternal scream of childbirth followed by the appearance of ‘Anno Domini’ on screen. There’s no irony here; the words denote the birth of Jesus. even though that name, and those of Joseph and Mary, are not used in the film. The unnamed carpenter (Nicolas Cage) escorts his wife (FKA twigs) and newborn baby to safety against the backdrop of Herod’s baby burning atrocities.

Fifteen years later finds the carpenter, the mother and ‘the boy’ (Noah Jupe) eking out an existence based on dad’s woodwork skills under the burning heat of the Egyptian sun. “You don’t look alike”, someone comments to the boy’s mother, as Cage wrestles with the fact that he is not, indeed, the father.

The sullen boy, who in turn seems mystified by his own existence (at one point he has a vision of a crucifixion, possibly his own) meets a girl (Isla Johnston, credited as ‘The Stranger’), covered with tiny scars, who immediately sets him on a path of temptation; it’s not hard to work out what character she represents. 

A prank ends up with the boy falling onto the body of a near dead leper who later returns to health; the first of a series of miracles which suggest that he won’t be following dad into the woodwork trade anytime soon. Soon word of the miracle spreads, and while the carpenter attempts to protect him, he soon realises that the boy is destined to “follow no man.”Apparently based on the ‘Infancy Gospel of Thomas’, an apocryphal (and heretical) depiction of the early years of Christ, it’s very difficult to know what to make of The Carpenter’s Son. It’s an alienating piece which, despite its slender running time, drags enormously. Despite its scenes of possession and body horror, it’s neither scary or believable; as if to possibly emphasise the difference between son and father, both Jupe and twigs deliver their lines in flat English accents against Cage’s west coast drawl. The imagery is heavy handed and, unintentionally, the whole thing tips dangerously towards parody. Perhaps notable only, then, for the latest addition to the weird, off the wall parts which have populated Cage’s mid period CV for a while now.