Few films that open at Christmas are about the birth of Christ. Most centre on the so-called festive season. A couple of exceptions are the delightful British movie The Holly and the Ivy, first shown in December 1952, and Ben-Hur, which had its world premiere shortly before Christmas 1959.

So there's a certain novelty about The Nativity Story, a modest work shot in Italy and Morocco, opening with the massacre of the innocents, then going back a year to the marriage of Mary and Joseph and ending with the flight into Egypt. The dialogue is flat as unleavened bread, but the bickering Magi provide comic relief. The New Zealand actress Keisha Castle-Hughes, teenage star of Whale Rider, is a lovely Mary; Ciaran Hinds is a hissable Herod. There are two striking images - the Magi looking at the night sky reflected in the shimmering water of a well, and a snake (presumably Satan) causing Mary to fall off a donkey that Joseph is leading across a turbulent river.