His Only Son

Did God command writer-director David Helling to make His Only Son (2023)? And if so, couldn’t He have changed His mind at the last minute? Here’s a movie that not only claims in the closing credits that the Binding of Isaac episode from Genesis is an “actual historical event,” but treats it the same way most films “based on true events” treat real historical events — i.e., making stuff up.

While the Bible is far from a historical document, the incidents it recounts and the characters that populate it are arguably better known than many important figures and landmarks (consider, for instance, Biblical Egypt vs. Ancient Egypt). People can tell if you make changes, like Ridley Scott interpreting literal acts of God in the insurance policy sense of the expression in Exodus: Gods and Kings. I’m always bemused by filmmakers who, like Helling, believe scripture to be the living word of God, yet dare to retcon the Bible.

In this case, the footnote declaring that “certain of the characters, events and dialogue portrayed in this motion picture were created for the purpose of fictitious dramatization” is quite the understatement. For starters, some of that dialogue includes Isaac (Edaan Moskowitz) saying, and I quote, “Wow... This is amazing.” Holy anachronistic slang, Batman!

In Genesis 22:3, “Abraham rose up early in the morning … took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son … and went unto the place of which God had told him” to go and “offer” Isaac “as a burnt offering.” In Genesis 22:4 “Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off.” His Only Son manages to squeeze the bulk of its 100-minute runtime between those two verses.

Like Last Days in the Desert, His Only Son is an “imagined” biblical chapter. This is fitting if we take into account that Abraham (Nicolas Mouawad), if he existed (which he almost certainly did not), had an overactive, not to say, dangerous, imagination. Then again, paranoid schizophrenia makes you, by biblical s...