Noah: Blurred Lines

Click here for Nate's Review of "NOAH"

When you walk in to a movie like Noah, which has been dragged through the mud by people claiming to protect the Bible, your internal critic is on high alert. Film is an amazing medium, like all literature, to convey truth and beauty and to explore issues critical to the human condition.

My journey with Noah began in Atlanta at the Catalyst Conference, where Darren Aronfsky premiered the trailer for the movie. Along with thousands of other Christians, we anxiously and critically watched the clips. People feared “Hollywood” ruining their story. 

When Noah bursts out with, “I am not alone” the arena erupted. Aronfsky had a deep passion for the story that went back into his childhood. For him Noah is story of peace, a story of humanity beginning new.

It’s a story of creation.
It’s what drew him to make the movie. 

Stories of creation inspire us to create.
Jesus taught in stories.
He taught in fictional stories called parables. 
Fictional. Not real. Fake. 
But in the fakeness, he taught truth.
He taught in fiction, to speak into our reality.
His stories were built upon values that had been communicated for years.
When we boil stories down to, “did it really happen?” we lose sight of the power of story.

In the creative world, stories are based on quality, complexity, individuality, and truth.
Not the truth that says it had to happen, but the kind of truth the reclaims humanity’s heart.
Darren Aronfsky directed an interesting, complex, and highly inspiring film that breathed new life into an exhausted genre.

I was talking with a co-worker about the movie and she had mentioned that her mother believed the movie was hijacked by environmentalists. During the movie, I sat next to a guy that shouted in the climax of movie, “Shoulda just read the NIV.”
In the first scene of the movie, he called it “a piece of crap.”

Noah is a film that will stick around for a while.
Aronfsky is a fantastic director. Noah is presented in the film as a dark hero or in biblical terms, a complicated prophet.

Biblically, Noah is an agent in God’s massive genocide of the human race. I don’t write that to be challenging for differences sake. I write that because God kills and wipes out the human race on account of sin. I write that because God merciless wipes out 99.9% of humanity because he says they are too far gone, too far fallen for God to want to save them. Cain killed Abel with a rock and God kills humanity with water. He could save them. He could definitely do that. Our God is sovereign. 

But he chose not to (yet).

So as the script beautifully states, “the waters of earth and heaven met” with Noah somewhere in between in an ark that God provides for him.

Noah has to deal with God’s moral goodness to him and his seeming despicable behavior to everyone else. So Noah does what millions have done throughout time. He drinks. He gets drunk. He becomes a raging alcoholic.


Noah is not a blonde-haired hero. He’s a righteous man whose been pushed to his limits. He’s drowned in mercy, but choses not to deal with it. And I don’t blame him.

This new creation God sets up that supposed to start with Noah and righteousness quickly turns to avoidance and numbness.

God eventually repents and God eventually sends Jesus to finish our sin off and reclaim us as his own.

All of this is to say, Aronfsky doesn’t shy away from this. The story of Noah is violent. Aronfsky includes violence. The story of Noah is sexy. Aronfsky includes sex. The story of Noah is ultimately the destruction of Noah.
Aronfsky doesn’t shy away from Noah’s anti-heroness. For all of Aronfsky’s addition to the story (of which still remain in the wide and expansive Christian tradition), he still manages to communicate the heart of Noah.

Aronfsky takes advantage of the affordances film gives him. The creation story is beautiful and a clip I will surely use in the future in ministry. Noah’s courage in the midst of war, rain, and God’s wrath to say that God is still with him is astounding. Noah has faith in God’s presence. Even when he’s getting drunk and avoiding what God’s done; he’s still a God-fearing, God-believing man.

Aronfsky does all this seamlessly and artistically. And of course, Russell Crowe does an amazing job as well.  Overall, while Noah dips its toe in to the realm of the heavy-handed, one dimensional morality trodden by many “Christian’ movies, it remains a strong film and an fresh perspective on a complicated and misunderstood story.



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Ben Langevin

Is a student intern, speaker, published writer and worship leader from Oviedo, FL. As a creative writing major at UCF (Go Knights!), he enjoys creating, discovering, and cultivating life giving environments wherever God leads him. Ben is an avid culture fanatic. His favorite things include Netflix marathons with his girlfriend Erika, dodgeball with students at youth group, and of course Starbucks. He attends Summit Church and works at University Carillon United Methodist Church. 

Connect with him on twitter: Follow @BenLangevin