[THE CUSTOM MARY
screens Saturday May 19th at 7:00 pm at the Ohio Independent Film
Festival.]
Review by Bob Ignizio
If you believe, as a good number of
people do, that the Shroud of Turin was used to cover the body of the
crucified Jesus, then it stands to reason there might be some of his
DNA on the object. From there, it's another small leap to the premise
of THE CUSTOM MARY, which is
that one could clone Jesus. The vessel chosen for this purpose is a
modern day virgin Mary (Alicia Marie Sixtos), a pious young Latina
who works at a translation office. That's where she meets Joe (James
Jolly), a young black man who customizes cars, turning them into
lowriders.
The
two start seeing each other, while at the same time the pastor of
Mary's church tells her that a shadowy group wants to use her to
bring about the second coming. Although she has a few doubts (one
would hope), Mary eventually assents to the procedure. When the baby
is born by C-section almost 9 months later on Christmas Day, however,
he isn't quite what the true believers were expecting: The boy is
mute, and his dark skin makes some suspect that the child is perhaps
Joe's rather than the reborn son of God.
