Mary's Song is a 55-minute movie on DVD, available from Orion’s Gate for $9, which tells the story of Mary as she became the mother of Jesus. The story switches back and forth between the old Mary remembering the miraculous events of her young womanhood, and her young self living those events. It begins with Mary and Joseph revealing their feelings to each other, and moves on through the visit of the angel to Mary, her visit to Elizabeth and return to Nazareth to tell Joseph that she is pregnant, and spends some time showing Jesus as a teenager and the tension between His family and the rabbis of Nazareth already at that time.

We enjoyed this movie, but most of us older ones (ages 13-adult) agreed we probably won't watch it again. I will probably let the younger children (ages 3-9) watch it sometime by themselves; there was nothing that even needed parental guidance. The acting was well done; I appreciated the realistic reactions and feelings that came out. Joseph's horror and unbelief at Mary's story was quite real. The setting and costumes were fairly well done, too, but hairstyles didn't feel authentic to me.

One thing we didn't appreciate was that Joseph was presented as a widower with several children. We don't know that from the Bible; it is possible, but it is also possible that Jesus' brothers, as mentioned in the Gospels, were Mary's children. Since a lot of the rest of the story was painstakingly accurate, I felt like that was an addition to the Bible. The last part of the movie was also an addition to the Bible, but it felt more authentic, as the young Jesus helped people, especially outcasts, where He could. One thing that did bother us a bit about that part, though, was that Joseph and Mary kept Jesus home to school Him, rather than sending Him to the synagogue school. That doesn't quite ring true from what we know of Jewish life in those days, although it could have happened.

--Product review by Emma Filbrun, The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, LLC, November 2018