There are only a very few stories that are good enough to tell over and over again, and chief among these is the greatest story ever told: the story of Jesus Christ. March 2025 will see the theatrical release of a fresh cinematic version of the oft-told Gospel account, this time with a focus on the institution of the Eucharist, as the title of the film discloses. Directed and co-written by Mauro Borrelli, The Last Supper is a faith-filled effort to bring the life of Christ to new life for moviegoers—but, even so, based on the principal of art making something new, the film doesn’t quite justify its existence.
The Last Supper is a totally orthodox presentation that Catholics (even Catholic families) need not shun this Lent. The film has impressive production values, which is rare to find in a religious feature, clearly working with a decent budget to create authentic costumes and impressive set pieces on location in Morocco. There is some competent cinematography on display, with good use of natural dramatic lighting. The actors playing Christ and His disciples—most notably Jamie Ward as Jesus, James Oliver Wheatley as Peter, and Robert Knepper as Judas—deliver solid, plausible performances.
By centering on the Last Supper, the film finds its way rather quickly through parts of the Passion that are often and naturally made central. Palm Sunday, Pontius Pilate, the scourging and crowning with thorns, the carrying of the cross, even the crucifixion are all more or less passed over for the sake of the Passover, treated in montaged flashforwards and flashbacks. With the upper room as the heart of the story, the theme that is given the most prominence (besides the sacrifice of Christ) are the infidelities of His fellows. The film spends a good deal of time developing the characters and motivations of Peter, Judas, and Caiaphas, who all stand as a kind of traitor’s gallery, with their own reasons, rebellions, and resolutions.
This emphasis is interesting and appropriate for the thematic narrative assumed by the film since betrayal is antithetical to breaking bread. The meal is a sharing of life and love, a mainstay of community and culture; and the acts of backstabbing, of denying friends, of turning people over to their enemies, are diametrically opposed to that of partaking in a meal together. In this exploration, The Last Supper has the most voice and vision—though, at times, it feels more concerned with the passion of Judas than the passion of Jesus.
From an audience’s perspective, there is always something more engaging about what is more relatable—and sin is the most relatable thing in the world, sadly. We are all turncoats, and Judas’s story is our own. But we strive to ensure that our outcome is more like the Rock’s than the Iscariot’s. Whether through the fear of Peter, the weakness of Judas, or the jealousy of Caiaphas, The Last Supper turns around these failures in friendship, the very friendship in and with Christ that the first Mass enshrined.
These arcs are also captivating in the use of the demonic exhortation, “save yourself,” as the characters suffer temptations to assume control of their own salvation instead of submitting to the salvation offered around Jesus’s table in food and drink, in Flesh and Blood. In this and its use of artistic license around these storylines, the film is most successful, even creating a surprising, poignant moment where Peter discovers the body of Judas and contemplates his own terrible use of a coil of snakelike rope.
But the thing that keeps this earnest film from being a success in general is its inability to emerge from the long shadow cast by Mel Gibson’s towering and now iconic The Passion of the Christ from 2004. Though The Last Supper drills in on moments that Gibson’s film treated lightly or not at all—such as the feeding of the five thousand, driving out the moneylenders from the Temple, and washing the disciples’ feet—the film somehow cannot help being derivative of the tone and even the substance of that earlier highly-acclaimed and beloved film. Though it has been two decades since The Passion’s release, The Last Supper’s inclusion of devilish apparitions orchestrating the fall of Judas and the eye-lock between Jesus and Peter when the cock crows are far too similar to avoid notice and, hence, the feeling that this approach has been done before.
Part of the promotional plug for The Last Supper is that it is theologically accurate. That is true, though it is also true that there isn’t much theology in the film to begin with. That being said, it is loud and clear and correct regarding the sacrifice, the oblation, and the Real Presence. Refreshing as that is in its intelligibility and exactitude, it is curious how and when The Last Supper departs from Scripture. The dialogue between Jesus and Caiaphas, for instance, is well known and clearly presented in the Bible, yet the film does its own thing with this scene—and it isn’t better.
Doing something new shouldn’t involve rewriting moments in the greatest story ever told. When God wrote the script, stick to the script, by all means—but the artistic instinct in such an endeavor seeks opportunity where Scripture leaves room for interpretation or inclusion. Putting words in Jesus’s mouth can be gratuitously risky when purporting theological correctness. “I do many things through my faith,” Jesus says at one point, but is it correct that Jesus had, or has, faith?
This is a moment of either artistic oversight or hazard by the writers of The Last Supper, which may be interesting as a point of thought or debate—but the overall impression of this film is not one of decisive creative risk. It is a presentation that is respectful of the sacred source material and even pious in its purpose—and that may be enough for many, but it is not enough to make it an innovative piece of Christian cinema. The Last Supper is working with the greatest material in the whole deposit of storytelling, but it struggles to present that material with a unique artistic vision. Any work of art can only be considered worthy art if it runs the risk of insight or analysis. True art is dangerous in the sense that it is groundbreaking, and challenges people to see things in a new or renewed way—and The Last Supper doesn’t pull that off.
It may be that this film intended to strike a more vanilla tone in order to tone down what many found unbearable in the graphic violence of Gibson’s treatment twenty years ago. But Gibson took gambles, and that is precisely what made his project personal and substantial. The Last Supper is ultimately too safe to be significant. It is certainly a sincere piece of cinema, but sincerity isn’t always a validation for superfluity. The film references the Book of Revelation regarding the Lamb, saying that Christ makes all things new—but The Last Supper doesn’t achieve the same Christological newness with its presentation, which waters down its artistic value. It feels like a well-made and careful retread, which may be enjoyable and edifying to many, but The Last Supper falls short of contributing much to the living tradition of this story of stories.
Editor’s Note: The Last Supper is set for release exclusively in theaters on March 14th. Check out showtimes and tickets at thelastsupper.movie.
Image from thelastsupper.movie
