The Brand New Testament

2015

1h 54m

IMDb RATING

6.6/10

1.7K

YOUR RATING

Rate

POPULARITY

Play trailer

4 Videos

57 Images

Comedy

Fantasy

God lives in Brussels. On Earth though, God is a coward, morally pathetic and odious to his family. His daughter, Ea, is bored at home and can't stand being locked up in a small apartment in ordinary Brussels, until the day she decides to revolt against her dad...

Directors

Jaco Van Dormael

Writers

Jaco Van Dormael(screenplay by)

Thomas Gunzig(screenplay by)

Stars

Pili Groyne

Benoît Poelvoorde

Yolande Moreau

See production, box office & company info

Videos4

Photos57

Top cast

God

God's Wife

Martine

François

Marc

Jean-Claude

Aurélie

Willy

Victor

The Priest

Xenia, l'Allemande

Jésus Christ

Kevin

Philippe

Martine's Husband

Adam

Eve

Directors

Jaco Van Dormael

Writers

Jaco Van Dormael(screenplay by)

Thomas Gunzig(screenplay by)

All cast & crew

Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

User reviews2

Review

Featured review

7/10

Next time you are asked to name some famous Belgians, you can add God to the list. He (Benoît Poelvoorde) is a bit of a slob though and lives with his long-suffering wife (Yolanda Moreau) and daughter "Ea" (Pili Groyne). Their son "JC" has moved out and despite his mother's longings, they've lost touch. Now this deity loves nothing more than to cause misery to both mankind and his family, and this irks young "Ea" into doing something about it. She uses his computer to send a message to everyone on earth telling them how long they have left to live - in the hope that is will completely ruin her father's credibility. Not content with that, she decides to recruit half a dozen modern day apostles to change his philosophy a little. To that end she climbs into their washing machine (that's their physical conduit to earth) and sets about recruiting her new friends. Her encounter with the vagrant "Victor" (Marco Lorenzini) makes for a good start as she encounters the whole gamut of society from rich to poor, happy and healthy to anything but, and it turns out that she has quite a decent amount of her own humanity to dispense as the comedy gathers pace and delivers really quiet well. It is satire at it's irreverent best offering a personification of God that could hardly be more different from that put forward by the church, and the surreal nature of some of the characterisations is really quite funny. A glowing fish that just wants to return to the sea; Catherine Deneuve finds new love in a seriously unlikely place; there's some walking on water and when her dad comes after her, well there are some frustrations for him too as he realises that he has no superpowers down amongst the great unwashed. Star of the film? Well that has to be "Kevin" (Gaspard Pauwels) whose message telling him he has 60-odd years left to go encourages him to do just about anything reckless and stupid fearlessly - boy is he in for a shock. Groyne delivers well here as does Thomas Gunzig's writing and whilst it's not exactly sacrilegious, it does ridicule nicely people's psychological dependency on the existence of and belief in an higher power. It's whimsical not spiritual.

Geronimo196712 May, 2024