![\"noble](\"http:\/\/behindthelensonline.net\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/noble-3.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nChristina Noble was born in the slums of Dublin, Ireland in 1944.\u00a0 Her father was a drunk.\u00a0 Christina and her three siblings were raised by their mother until her passing when Christina was only 10-years old, leaving the children homeless and alone.\u00a0 Despite the hardships and poverty, Christina was a happy child, an optimist with a sunny disposition that matched that of her idol, Doris Day.\u00a0 With a voice like an angel, Christina would sing on the streets or in pubs, trying to make money to care for herself and brothers.\u00a0 And she would talk to God; actually question, berate and barter with him like a child negotiating for marbles in the schoolyard as she looked for answers for the heartache and hardships of her still young life.<\/p>\n
Despite her best 10-year old efforts, the children were taken by the State, separated and sent to different orphanages.\u00a0 Christina was housed in an institution in West Ireland for four years and led to believe that her siblings were dead.\u00a0 She eventually escaped from the orphanage, living in a hole in the ground of Phoenix Park in Dublin.\u00a0 During this time she learned that her brother was alive.\u00a0 She was soon found and taken back to the institution.\u00a0 But when she turned 18, Christina ran away for good, heading to England to be with her brother.\u00a0 In England she met and married her husband and gave birth to three children.<\/p>\n
What should have been a happy time for Christina with a long-desired hearth and home, life was still hard and happiness eluded her.\u00a0 Then, in 1971, at the height of the war in Vietnam, she had a dream; a dream about naked Vietnamese children running down a dirt road trying to escape napalm bombing.\u00a0 That dream began to haunt her as she relived her own childhood, unable to escape the memories of destitution, poverty, filth, homelessness, hunger and loneliness.\u00a0\u00a0 But being the ever upbeat and perky Christina, she resolved to do something for the children in Vietnam.<\/p>\n
It took 20 years, but in 1989, Christina set foot in on Vietnamese soil to fulfill what would become her cathartic destiny – the Christina Noble Foundation.\u00a0 Based in Ho Chi Minh City (the former Saigon), in the 25+ years since Christina Noble first began her crusade, the Foundation programs have expanded throughout Vietnam while Noble herself has been awarded the OBE by Queen Elizabeth.<\/p>\n
This is her story.<\/p>\n
I had no idea of Christina Noble’s story when I sat down to screen the film.\u00a0 I went into the movie blind and came out with eyes and heart wide open.\u00a0 At what should be the film’s darkest moments there is always positivity, hopefulness, inner strength and resilience; of course, aided by\u00a0 perpetually sunny Doris Day moments!\u00a0 NOBLE is a moving and inspiring story, a testament to an incredible woman and her inner strength and faith.\u00a0\u00a0 So artfully constructed by Stephen Bradley, we may feel sadness or sorrow, but never real abysmal horror so as to make one turn away.\u00a0 The story stays focused on Christina and her personal “whys” and “hows” as opposed to straying into the politics of the day.<\/p>\n
Crucial to the story success of NOBLE is the performance and casting of Christina Noble herself.\u00a0 Here, Christina Noble is portrayed seamlessly by three different actresses at various points in Noble\u2019s life.\u00a0 So perfectly cast are these three women in look and in spirit that there is never a doubt this is the same woman over the course of 40 years.<\/p>\n
Gloria Cramer Curtis is the new young Tina Majorino!\u00a0 As 10-year old Christina, she is adorable.\u00a0 But what spunk, determination, conviction and pure JOY she elicits.\u00a0 And what a voice!\u00a0 Mirroring the essence that Curtis brings to the screen, and equally strong, is Sarah Greene as the teenaged Christina.\u00a0 But the icing on the cake is veteran actress Dierdre O’Kane who initially brought the project to Bradley.\u00a0 Perfection.\u00a0 Full of Irish fight and piss and vinegar.\u00a0\u00a0 There is a grit, determination and drive that is almost enviable yet there is a comfortableness in her own skin and with her past.\u00a0 O\u2019Kane mesmerizes with powerful truth in performance and character.<\/p>\n Christina Noble didn\u2019t achieve her dream of aiding the children of Vietnam alone.\u00a0 Along the way, there were some significant individuals who became integral to the journey.\u00a0 One such individual\/amalgamation thereof, is portrayed by Brendan Coyle.\u00a0 Coyle is a delight as staid businessman Gerry Shaw and has such chemistry with O\u2019Kane that you hope for happy romantic sparks to fly.\u00a0 You really want to see the two of them end up together as a couple, which they do in a business sense, but there is a deeper connection between them thanks to the layered performances that draws one deeper into the story and their relationship.<\/p>\n For every good guy, there has to be a bad guy and in NOBLE that comes from Mark Huberman.\u00a0 Easily adding an oily slickness to David Somers, Huberman walks a fine line of deceit while emitting a sense of unsettling concern, prompting heart-stopping moments akin to waiting-for-the-shoe-to-drop with revelations.\u00a0 And when that shoe drops, boy does it drop.\u00a0 Explosive.<\/p>\n Captivating is Nhu Quynh Nguyen.\u00a0 As Madame Linh, a Vietnamese woman who reached out her hand to Christina both in friendship and in need of help for her small facility\/clinic in which she tried to help the homeless children, Nguyen brings a regal pride but then adds beautifully telling nuance with a slight stoop to her shoulders as if carrying the weight of the world.\u00a0 It’s a powerful touch that speaks volumes as to the strength of character of Madame Linh.\u00a0\u00a0 And again, the relationship and chemistry between O’Kane and Nguyen is resonant and believable.\u00a0 Very strong female relationships in NOBLE which celebrate the maternal strength in the world, and the weight borne by the women when it comes to protection and caring of children.<\/p>\n Cute as a button is a young local actor who plays a Vietnamese boy named \u201cLam\u201d who will break your heart. Focusing screen time on him with O\u2019Kane gives a face to her Noble\u2019s mission and tugs at the heartstrings. You can’t help but want to wrap your arms around him and protect him.<\/p>\n Written and directed by Stephen Bradley, the real beauty of NOBLE, and what sets it apart from being a Hallmark or Lifetime tv movie, is Bradley\u2019s construct.\u00a0 A non-linear weaving back and forth between past and “present 1989” and only revealing bits and pieces of the timeline – like breadcrumbs – and the corresponding temporal nexus keeps one engaged, interested and above all, curious, as we learn why and how life took Christina to her present state.\u00a0 Bradley’s vision is clear, concise and he has found that sweet spot between emotion, character and visuals that come together perfectly.\u00a0 While I suspect that the real Christina Noble endured even more hardships and hell than what we see on screen, Bradley smartly doesn’t mire us down in sorrow and “woe is me” catastrophes and horrors.\u00a0 He gives us just enough to tell the story and create the connective tissue for the non-linear construct so that we understand Christina’s motivations and drive.<\/p>\n Describing Noble as \u201ca larger than life character\u201d, Bradley approached the script from the viewpoint of a dramatist.\u00a0 \u201cIn that sense, Christina is a very complicated character.\u00a0 She\u2019s got a lot of conflicting facets to her character and she\u2019s a larger than life character. . . [S]he\u2019s got that classic kind of hero\u2019s journey to her as well.\u00a0 All of those obstacles she\u2019s overcome to break out in the end and into the blue sky of what she has done.\u00a0 I was thinking first and foremost as a dramatist and from that point of view she\u2019s just a fascinating character to make a film about.\u201d\u00a0 But that larger than life persona, with a lifetime of experiences, provided another challenge for Bradley – which chapters and stories of Noble\u2019s life to incorporate into the script. \u201cIn a way, that was one of the hardest things.\u00a0 I did write some other storylines and some other subplots and some of the even harder events that happened to her, and it was a question of honing that down and trying to get to the essence of Christina\u2019s character, and therefore, jettisoning\u00a0 – not wanting it to be too much story for an audience.\u201d<\/p>\n Retaining all the elements of Christina\u2019s childhood, the exchanges of Christina talking to God add a touch of humor infused with the childlike resolute conviction, something which each of the three actresses bring to their \u201cconversations\u201d with Him, with Christina always rationalizing on her own terms that bad things happening better mean something really really good later on in life.\u00a0 You can see a child bargaining with God like that and here it becomes a touchstone and hallmark of the character.\u00a0 The purity, innocence and blind faith captured in a 10-year old Tina becomes the core essence (along with perky Doris Day) of who Christina is as an adult, something which the 17-year old and 40 year old performances capture and retain.\u00a0 A consistency of generational performances that is rare to see.<\/p>\n Adding to the strength of Noble’s true story and Bradley’s script is the visual work of cinematographer Trevor Forrest making NOBLE as much a visual storytelling as a performance driven piece.\u00a0 For Bradley, \u201cIt was all about finding the essence of Christina\u2019s character which, in all aspects of the film, including the cinematography, is what kind of drove me on.\u00a0 One of the things with Christina is she doesn\u2019t have any gray or black or darkness in her life in terms of the colors that she brings to all of her surroundings.\u00a0 I wanted to use that in the cinematography.\u00a0\u00a0 We shot the film on widescreen and we shot it on 35mm.\u00a0 We shot it on film, probably the last time I\u2019ll ever get to shoot on film in my life.\u00a0 Actually, it was the last film that was processed at the Technicolor lab in London. . . But I wanted to shoot on film because I was in the 1950’s, I was in the 1960’s and I was in 1989 which was all pre-digital.\u00a0 It also gave me other tools to play with.\u00a0 Like we used three different stop-types for each different period, and a different grading method; all of which film gave us more latitude with.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n