7 Aspects Of Darren Aronofsky’s Noah That Are Surprisingly Biblical

7) Noah gets drunk

The strangest detail of the Genesis story of Noah is its ending, in which Noah plants a vineyard, gets drunk on wine and passes out by himself completely naked. It’s one of those plot points that gets conveniently left out of the picture books for obvious reasons, but probably also because it raises some deep and troubling questions. Why would Noah, a righteous man, be getting unconsciously drunk, alone? Why is this part included in the original story? In many ways, the entire character and story of Noah is centered upon this very question. As a result, we’re presented with a portrait of a character who is called upon to do what he believes is the right thing, but as a result is left riddled with guilt and depression over his choices, which he ultimately determines was against God’s will.

I’m finding it difficult to find a more faithful adaptation of biblical material than Noah. It’s possible that I’m biased—Darren Aronofsky is both a namesake and a figure of fairly significant inspiration for me—but there’s something about this film that seems to satisfy every aspect of the Genesis story while building upon and complicating its themes for a richer and more modern experience. The purported weaknesses seem to stem from viewers unable to latch on to its sometimes bizarre style that shifts between intimate human drama and LOTR-ish epic, sprinkled with the experimental pure cinema of the evolution sequence. For me, it took about a third of the movie before I was eating out of Aronofsky’s hand. Along with A Serious Man’s take on the Book of Job, Noah deserves to be considered among the best biblical adaptations put to screen yet. My hope is that it achieves the kind of success so that it won’t be the end of ambitious interpretations of ancient texts, but a new beginning.