DVD Review : Noelle

As a sometimes jaded reviewer I was suspicious of "Noelle" for several reasons. The first was it was directed and written by the main star of the film, David Wall. The second was that it was produced by the American Bible Assocation. But I have to say this film was pretty good. It tells the story of a catholic priest who goes town to town shutting down catholic churches that have low attendance or that are not making enough money to support themselves. However when Father Keanne meets the people that make up this church and community it becomes a lot more difficult than he thinks to shut them down. Although this sounds a bit formulaic this is not the case. The film uses some pretty serious moral issues as fodder for the story without every getting too funny or too slapstick. Just a dash of humor here and there.



I think the only thing that kept this film from the A category was the editing. The acting is there (for the most
part) and the script has some good turns and twists however towards the middle of the film everything gets all
jumpy due to some weird editing. The main thing that really suprised me about this film is the cinematography.

Some of the shots in this film are simply amazing. I am not sure where this was filmed (maybe someone can leave the locale in the comments below) but it had some amazing landscapes. Some of my favorites were beaches covered in snow and the amazing stain glass windows at the church when they were framed in all black.

There were no Behind The Scenes Features on this DVD.

All in all I give it a B-. Something you should rent around Christmas and watch.