10 Keys to Support Your Partner from THE NATIVITY STORY

okay first of all we're not watching this for theology okay we're watching this because oscar isaac is joseph awesome example of how to be a husband to a pregnant wife i'll give you an oscar isaac all right also it's a beautiful movie and i love it i disagree do not like at all this is going to be an interesting episode hello and welcome to cinema therapy i'm jonathan decker i'm a licensed therapist and i love movies i am alan c wright i am an unlicensed filmmaker and i need therapy so this is an interesting because we very often see eye to eye on movies most of the time yeah and we and we choose movies based on like this mutual like but you are something of a conundrum for me you are a man of faith who does not like religious movies as a general rule deep faith and most religious films make me slightly ill yeah i mean you like ben hur because everybody oh yeah ben is amazing but like and so i keep trying to throw these movies at you then i'm like well here's a good one this one's really well made and you're like you're like you're like a snobby little food critic you're like get that film away from me i don't like food i love it if i don't love it i don't swallow oh it stinks of rotten cheese [Laughter] and so i i was like this one nativity story this one is in my opinion it's gorgeously shot it's well acted the music is lovely and there is just a gentle tenderness to the storytelling that really speaks to me and i was sure that this one alan would say yeah you picked a good one that is a good bible film uh it's garbage it's it's it's terrible oscar isaac is very good uh some of the other performances are good many of the performances are not the prophecy wouldn't night further the cinematography looked like a mid-2000s nike commercial wow uh so there i had i had issues with a lot of it see i love in the score they have the score itself and then they have a very an orchestral interweaving of christmas carols and hymns into this [Music] it could have been real schmaltzy yeah and i felt that that actually worked yeah so yeah that was that was all right hey there we go buddy you know friendly fist bump here we are so um so we considered canning the episode the moment alan told me that i'm like oh gosh well i don't want to there's going to be contention and stuff but then i thought hey this is a cinema channel but it's also a therapy channel and this is an opportunity to model how to navigate disagreement respectfully absolutely as well as maybe learn from each other's perspective even if we don't end up budging as soon as you pitched we can model you know healthy disagreement we were like aha yes and the good thing is we we agree on the therapy of this episode oh yeah we disagree on the cinema but i saw this and i thought when i'm a husband i want to be a husband like joseph and i will concede that it's possible that i overlook some of the film's flaws because that message resonated with me so much but it still holds up for me so we're gonna go through it so you're familiar with the story everyone's familiar with the nativity story right so mary gets the the visit from the angel you're gonna give birth to the son of god yada yada she and joseph go to uh to bethlehem to be taxed and there's no room at the end i'm sorry there's no room here all of those familiar story beats are there so we're going to address how to take care of a partner who's pregnant and struggling and this resonated with me because when my wife was pregnant with our fourth you know my wife she's a real go-getter right she is a she's a terminator she's a go-getter and it was a particularly brutal pregnancy remembering this film i stepped up and tried to do everything and she's told me that that was the greatest example of love or one of the greatest examples of love she's ever seen in her life so let's let's dive in how to be a partner to someone who's pregnant first of all is be committed you know when they're talking about we gotta go we gotta go to bethlehem and mary's gonna come with us and it's over 100 miles and she's pregnant she can't handle it and he makes this promise he says i will protect your daughter and the child with all that i am i promise which i think is his mission statement for the movie and in my opinion he does time and time again he protects her takes care of her with all he is the second thing is he defends her and he stands by her so this part actually is in the bible it's one of the few character beats we have is that when joseph found out that mary's pregnant and he knows he hasn't done anything with her yeah there is the law says that if he makes an accusation she'll be stoned to death yep father i have broken no vow oh you have broken every vow mary and in the bible it talks about how he refuses to make her a public example if i claim this childless mind i will be lying i will have broken the law laid down by god i would never ask him to lie and he just wants to settle the matter privately and i love you know when he says to her that there will be no accusation i will make no accusation and she talks about you've been merciful and i won't forget it but he still storms out of there without that there can be no trial you have shown great mercy oh yeah he's not happy about it and i i did again i thought that scene was actually really strong and due in no small part to oscar isaac really just crushing it really good performances there oscar isaac i think is one of the greats you know do you ever think about the future at all you mean like flying cars hotels on the moon [Music] one of the greats he's amazing and he elevates this film and i love the scene where he says they're basically engaged but they're not supposed to do anything sexual for a year right and she's pregnant now and he says to her you are my wife i am your husband but there's only anyone they know he knows there's going to be judgment he knows there's going to be scorn there's going to be the rumor mill's going to be churning and he talks earlier about how important his honor and his integrity is to him and his his good name but he decides i'm going to stand by you and if they're going to talk crap about you they're going to talk crap about me yeah where do you see in in pregnancy but also just in marriage the need to defend or stand by your spouse when it comes to outside people first of all i don't have to defend my wife very often uh in the face of like harsh condemnation or scorn because she's so smart it's usually the opposite great yeah she's usually defending me um but uh i think that um joseph in this film is actually modeling really really great behavior which is in that scene he says i'm not gonna condemn you yeah but then he kind of storms out and there's an obvious undercurrent of we'll deal with this later yeah right yeah when your spouse is the object of scorn or condemnation or is just in the wrong you defend them publicly support them publicly and then deal with the issues privately and then later on if there are you know public face saving measures that need to be taken you can do that later in public once you're both in agreement on how to do that but i think in the moment an awesome point i didn't even think about that but what i what i think is beautiful about the story is it's about her growing to love him because he's just decent and just a good man yeah and i and i really resonated that with that something we've talked about we talked about in our twilight video is the is the myth the social myth that good is boring now sometimes good people are boring because they don't have drive or ambition or passion or personality sometimes good people are boring because they're boring right not because they're good right because but and i but there's a there's something that we see in joseph's portrayal here which is meekness and humility but not meekness is not weakness like it's a strength right and that she comes to love him not because he needs her to love him he's not desperate for her affection he just makes a promise to take care of her and she and he does right and by the end of the film she goes from i don't want to be with him too she genuinely loves him and that to me is very beautiful you know whether or not you agree they pulled it off yeah the issue i have with it is keisha castle hughes i've seen her in some other stuff where she's well's better she's good and not yeah she's great my name is pakia and i come from a long line of chiefs uh in this i just weakness in the script maybe weakness and direction maybe she just didn't really know what she was doing but i just didn't feel much of anything from her at any point um i could see that i mean what to you is she doesn't know what to do or there's no emotion there to me is gentle and understated oh i could see that you know but uh i mean she she looks really saddened for lauren a lot early on and i'll agree early on she just has like that one face that's what i call the anne of green gables face which is the face anna green gables makes all the time which is this where she sells me is when she really starts to warm to joseph there's just beautiful ways that she looks at him and engages with him and that could very well be that she was just interacting with oscar isaac and that's hey never count out oscar isaac you owe my wife and his isaacness i think there i think there are some things in us that are seeping to the surface oscar uh we'll give you our number uh well listen uh joseph in the film is the least boring character he gets the only joke there's one joke there's one joke it's a pretty good one he nailed it so he's the least boring guy around well but he he's holding his hand he does have the one joke so having a sense of humor is important because pregnancy can is hard and it's heavy and the fear of what's coming is real it takes a serious emotional and physical toll on the mother it can also take a physical toll on the the partner the father the partner of the mother because if you're doing your job it should take a toll on you oh absolutely you should be physically exhausted i love that joseph number four he protects and provides and he keeps his promise you know he protects her from thieves would your husband be willing to sell him no what belongs to us stays with us and he works hard to build a house for her i wish to have the roof on before her return i'm not saying we should all adhere to these traditional moors where i'm the man therefore i do all the work and all the providing i mean i i we should all be able to do what we want to do but if you are a partner to someone who's pregnant and you are not doing your part it's not okay there are physical things that you must do even if you know you're in a relationship and the the woman in the relationship is the breadwinner you got to pick up a whole bunch of slack yeah and if you can provide now i know people have disabilities or hard times hard time finding work but there's no excuse to be like playing xbox all day if you can pull your weight we'll just believe it at that yep um sacrifice number five i love i mean something that really spoke to me is when they're donk like the other people on the trail their donkey was gonna fall off the cliff he says that is weak and so he decides to go without food so mary can eat and their donkey can eat so that that she'll be safe and that the animal's not gonna die in them and i love that whole scene where he's talking to the donkey and he's like oh i take him back there's a second joke he gets the second joke of the film yeah where he feeds the donkey and tells him i am the hungry one not you although having uh worked on a farm i don't know of a donkey that would be like oh boy i ate one third of a tortilla i'm full now i'm stuffed to the rafters whoa you know she's riding he walks till his feet bleed which leads us to the next one which is letting your partner be there for you sometimes we can go to such extremes where no no you're pregnant i got this no you're pregnant i got this where we treat them where like they're absolutely helpless and that's not the case i love the scene where he's asleep and she's washing his feet um both as you know kind of a a precursor to what their son would do later down the road but also when she's when she says my child you will have a good and decent man to raise you just how she sees his goodness that really spoke to me now i i also want to say we don't want to set a precedent that if you are good to someone and treat them well that you deserve their love or they owe you their love the nice guys on the internet who are nice guys and are really mad that women won't sleep with them you're not nice right but like i deserve it because i was nice to you i deserve it because i was a decent human being you don't deserve anything decent human being is the minimum bar to clear if you are a decent human being and you do all these things and you look like oscar isaac but it's still again oscar isaac come on the show still comes down to their choice right you have to honor their choice what's beautiful about this story is they're already in a committed relationship he's not trying to win her love through his actions he's just trying to honor a commitment he made to her right that he would take care of her and she she falls for it uh i actually really thought that the foot washing scene was very strong i liked mary's performance there obviously oscar isaac's just passed out so he's and even then crushing it such a man crush it's crazy now number seven be strong but not stoic uh it's important it's important to be strong for your partner because they're i mean look for a lot of women if you're pregnant the hormones and the emotions it's a lot for the person who's experiencing it so it's important that if you're the partner that you be strong and if they if they get mad or if they get sad that you don't take it personally and that you don't take it to heart you need to be strong for them when they're afraid when they're sad but you also need to be vulnerable and real and i love the scene when they're talking about when he's got her the fish he says the angel told me not to be afraid and that they should not be afraid are you afraid yes and he says i wonder if i'll ever even be able to teach him anything now in this case they're talking about because it's the son of god but how many fathers feel that way period about their kids right am i capable of doing this am i yeah and and that vulnerability makes it okay for her to be vulnerable with him are you yes i'm not gonna be judged and and it brings them closer thoughts on that scene i thought that was a strong scene i feel like i'm picking all the strong scenes you're picking all the best scenes and we're not talking about any of the herod stuff any of the wise men stuff which was just garbage uh it tried to cram three different movies into one movie you were saying you didn't feel like they came they never felt like they joined together and they didn't feel like they were informing one another one of the things that you really want to do if you're making a film that has multiple different story lines is when you transition from one story to another you want that to feel like it's informing the other one this is one of the things that the lord of the rings films do amazingly well is they're telling multiple stories of like mary and pippen and you know sam and frodo and you know everyone else but every time you move from one to the other what's happening to them or the shot that you're coming out of informs what you're going into it's really brilliantly done and you found this very choppy very choppy the good news is we're illustrating very nicely all of these points which are very solid turns out you're pretty good at this uh so yeah i don't have a lot to quibble with in that scene okay so we'll get to quibbles later number eight is seed her comfort which is a perfect time to talk about what's comforting us what's comforting us is leave this bastion for popcorn go to passionforpopcorn.com so pasha i've got birthday cake white chocolate and the reason i wanted this one for this episode is first of all we're celebrating the nativity and second of all 2020 is lame and i needed some comfort food well happy birthday jesus sorry your party's so lame we needed some comfort food that's got it's got jimmy's in it i've got sugar cookie which is just sweet and tender just like the love story just like the love story would have been in this film if it was better written wow number eight see to her comfort i love when he's running through bethlehem like freaking out i love that it's not so many movies about jesus or nativity joseph is like he's a little bit anxious looking but he's knocking on doors and he's politely asking is there a place everybody's usually so reverent in right sort of christian movies right and here he's like i don't have a full-blown panic yeah because i don't have a um midwife i don't have anybody to help me with this it's happening now that's going down right now and he's running through the streets like trying to find her a place right i beg you i have to move your home but any place you have and he does like so uh cedar comfort number nine don't bother your emotions i love the display of vulnerability when jesus is born and joseph is just just unabashed joy and what really speaks to me now as a father and again it's oscar isaac is crushing it because the script's just going to say joseph cries because he's happy and then um after the birth be devoted and present for her now so let's watch the scene i love that he uses the yarmulke as a pillow yeah that's a big deal because you're not supposed to remove that some other time i'd be interested in your insights on the cinematography and why it looks like an early 2000s nike commercial because i look at this and i think it's oh it's the the strong backlight on both sides and there's very rarely any front light even during the day are you one i have been given the strength i prayed for strength from god and from you [Music] that we have a little bit of christmas hymns in there yeah again that should be really schmaltzy and it mostly works [Music] so he says are you well you know i'm just i know that's not a big deal but that absolutely needs to be not with your cigar look at my baby everybody look what i did um yeah i love that just the little details that he takes care of the baby his yarmulke becomes a pillow his first question her is are you well she is trying to be firm and faithful but she's also scared scared to be a mother scared of the social fallout scared of you know you may think it's real you may think it's myth but like the idea of your raising god's kid talk about pressure yeah that's a bit and uh and she says i've been given the strength i prayed for strength from god and from you if you are in a relationship with someone who's pregnant once again i don't want to suggest that they don't have strength in and of themselves because they have plenty but your job is to support your job is to strengthen to uphold to love and to serve and we don't have a lot of cinematic examples of men as servants no we really don't you know i mean i'm not talking about hired servants or slaves i'm talking about i love you so i serve you the man who chooses to serve yeah yeah and that's why and honestly it might be i'll be candid it might be my how strongly attached to that idea i am the bible talks about love covers a multitude of sins and it's possible that my love that's my love for that idea of serving the people that you love has covered a multitude of cinematics cinematic sins like i will own that and that's that's me trying to meet alan halfway but uh but it still it really speaks to me well i am gonna come not the rest the other half of the way but i'm gonna come a little bit uh having discussed this with you i i will revise my previous opinion of this still very problematic don't love it but this particular storyline i'm seeing new stuff in it that i didn't see even having read your outline before we watch the film discussing it with you i'm seeing more from your perspective what you love about it yeah and i will grudgingly acknowledge that this is pretty good for that part what he's saying is there's three story lines in this film we have a third of a good movie ish ish anyways but uh this is beautiful though because this is honestly the the meaning of the holidays whether it's christmas or hanukkah or kwanzaa or festivus or solstice or whatever it is it's about creating unity it's about creating joy it's about creating closeness and i love that we did this episode we you might see more disagreement episodes from us in the future just so we can keep practicing this is fun whoever you are wherever you are whatever holiday you celebrate we love you we're grateful that you watch we love having you with us yes thank you john we are very grateful for all of you during this holiday season uh if you would like to show us some gratitude you can rent or buy the film using our link below and then let us know in the comments whether jono is right and it's a beautiful film i was right and it's a stinky film or it's some kind of weird beautiful stench a beauty stench i think i made that smell one time anyways it was upsetting um and if you'd like to find us on social media we are at therapy underscore cinema on twitter and instagram you can find us on facebook as well so until next time sleep in heavenly peace park the herald angels sing and watch movies [Music] you

Channel: Cinema Therapy

Views: 238,502

Keywords: cinematherapy, cinema therapy, mental health, counseling, therapy, mental health therapy, Jonathan Decker, Alan Seawright

Id: MV0IBwLwcYI

Length: 23min 6sec (1386 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 18 2020