The Chosen: A Review thus Far

I watched the first two seasons of The Chosen recently online.  Here is a review.

 

 

Breaking from the usual “Jesus Film” mold, The Chosen takes a TV format of seasons and episodes.  It is also not a word-for-word from a Gospel.  I’d call it a mix of historical fiction and “based on actual events.” 

 

Going from the red-letter page to the screen is not easy.  It compounds the book-to-movie transition problem.  The Chosen does a great job of not being a stilted and literal word-for-word, filling out the text on screen, while also not taking liberties that violate the text for our current assumptions about how Jesus would have acted in person.  It puts the Gospel narrative into a modern cinematic format, not a straight-forward rendering, even close to verse by verse.  But at key points it gets close to word for word.

 

There are plenty of editorial additions that seem to fit, but are not at all in text.  But there are also a lot of additions that accurately reflect the history we’ve learned since earlier Jesus films.

 

The soundtrack was done by the Jars of Clay lead, and it is pretty good, though vocalizations and “mic-drop” vibrations are over used.  My biggest concern was using the slow motion, manly music, strut several times, for Jesus and the disciples.  I guess it conveys “going to do important work /slash/ take care of business” to the current generation.  But it came across as hokey.  Some of the humor is also cheesy, but it does convey our familiar sense that the disciples were a bit bumbling and clueless around Jesus.

 

The series is rather sentimental, by which I mean it grabs for your heartstrings at certain moments.  I usually don’t like this, but what redeems it is that those moments are quite significant: a miracle Jesus performs, someone realizes who He really is, or the viewer is reminded of Scripture pointing to His deity, etc.

 

The common objections to such films continue to apply.  Should we be depicting Jesus at all?  If that is okay, what about assuming that Jesus’ appearance and mannerisms, or details of the disciples’ lives, which are creative though informed guesses by the director, are gospel truth?  How do we keep our imagination grounded in the text, if we have a compelling visual image before us now in The Chosen?  Or is it helpful to have an accompanying image, devotionally?  Isn’t that similar

 

They are aiming to produce seven seasons, and only two are out yet.

Watch for free online at thechosen.tv