Film Review: Black Nativity makes a joyless noise

• Courtesy Fox Searchlight
• SINGING OUT: Jacob Latimore, Angela Bassett, Jennifer Hudson, and Forest Whitaker in the new Christmas movie “Black Nativity.”

Black Nativity takes its title from a classic 1961 Christmas pageant-play by Langston Hughes, but it is an otherwise pretty much unrelated maudlin family drama with musical numbers. Some of the songs are decent in a contemporary, corporate-gospel, autotune kind of way, but there’s a weird, ‘checking-off-the-boxes,’ desultory quality to the whole endeavor. Forest Whitaker seems somewhat uncomfortable as a grandfatherly Harlem preacher, and it turns out that his Christmas sermon occupies, punishingly, much of the second half of the film. The sudden appearance of Mary J. Blige in a platinum wig midway through the movie sparks some hope that things will perk up, but unfortunately, she isn’t given much to do.

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Overall, the film’s elements - evangelical righteousness, Hollywood slickness, gritty street story, Christmas schlock and family melodrama - don’t make for an appealing mix. Still, the movie is not without its charms: Jennifer Hudson and Angela Bassett are both fantastically likeable stars (though they deserve much better material), some of the incidents, as when the protagonist tries to sell an heirloom watch in a pawn shop, are compelling, and the Christimas-in-Harlem setting is lovely and original. Ultimately, there may be a small audience willing to overlook the movie’s many faults and just enjoy the music and the hokey story about spirituality and connecting with family at Christmastime, but potential viewers should nonetheless be forewarned that, as with so many ‘uplifting’ Christmas things, it can all suddenly turn on a dime and seem unfathomably depressing.

It should also be noted that the film comes from the Fox Entertainment Group, the massive corporation whose television news network stokes resentments about ‘big government’ and a black president. This film is compatible with that cruddy vision, even if its surface looks very different. The hope for the marginalized, evicted and down-trodden here is in wealthy family connections, and all social ills find their resolution in the church. This is decidedly not the greatest story ever told.

Black Nativity. 1 star. Stars Jacob Latimore, Angela Bassett, Jennifer Hudson, and Forest Whitaker. At area theaters.