Don't listen to the negative reviews

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

The acting in this movie is really good.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Daniel Coulombe (Lothaire Bluteau) is asked to modernize a passion play written 35 years ago. He gathers people from the play, dubbing artists who sometimes dub porn, and a model with little experience. He incorporates newer controversial theories on Jesus and it becomes a big hit as alternative theater. However the Catholic priest isn't happy with all the changes. Then parts of Jesus' life start happening in the real world. When he is injured at a performance, Daniel can't get a room at the Catholic hospital.Writer/director Denys Arcand made something that transcended simple entertainment. It is unlike anything else. It is blasphemous. And it is compelling. It's ending is tragic and uplifting at the same time. It was nominated for a foreign language Oscar losing out to the also excellent 'Cinema Paradiso'.

Jesus of Montreal is a play within a movie; in this case The Passion Play. However, the actors do a little rewrite, with changes which anger many traditional Catholics. One of the is that a Roman soldier was Jesus' real father and left right after the Savior's birth; ouch.Daniel, the actor playing Jesus, has an accident and is taken to a Catholic hospital and he is ignored. He leaves and winds up at a Jewish hospital, where he collapses and is pronounced brain dead. He has no relatives, and so his friends are asked for consent to take his organs. The film is an allegory on the life of Christ, using Daniel, as a parallel figure. He has just returned from the east. The other actors have left good, safe jobs, in order to do the play, becoming Daniel's disciples. With the donation of his organs, Daniel is resurrected by saving the lives of others. Jesus of Montreal is a bold vision by director Denys Arcand.

I don't know enough about Catholicism or Qeubecor culture to comment intelligently, so I'll keep this focused on the wonderful treatment of storytelling.The Passion has been told and retold for decades and has lost its public appeal. A modern adaptation is needed to connect to a new audience. For a story to take hold of a culture it has to be felt in the spirit of the players, who must to some extent become the art they portray. The artist in many ways is God of his world. He creates, reshapes the world according to his own vision -- his own image. The best art opens and turns outward from this and reshapes the world that consumes it. Shakespeare, Mozart have achieved this.These players do the same thing with the added layer of having to reinterpret the words of an actual God (the irony is that this reinterpretation is closer to the original than the Jesus these Quebecors have known -- after thousands of generations of theological telephone, the message has been distorted).Daniel is consumed by his character, possessed, literally taken over. Much like Jesus the man was consumed by Jesus the supernatural being. Jesus's words, too, changed the world. As far as treatments of artist as God and manipulator of his world, this is one of the best.(And -- Arcand maintains this theme wonderfully in The Barbarian Invasions by having the same priest, also played by Pelletier 15 years later, still seeking to commercialize and monetize the art spawned by his religion.)

Truly a great film. I initially saw this in Montreal while living there a few years ago and have have been hooked on it since. This film portrays a wonderful parallel in the lives and situations of the characters in the film with the lives of Jesus and his followers. Right down to the dramatic end. Clear Representions made are Jesus, Mary Magdalen, and of course the Pharisees. Its certainly a thought provoking film just as the story of the crucifixion is thought provoking on both a personal level and in looking at the world outside. And to tease my fried who commented previously on this film. It is truly Quebecois, not Canadian. :)