Last Days in the Desert

Plot

Last Days in the Desert follows Jesus in an imagined chapter from his 40 days of fasting and praying in the desert. On his way out of the wilderness, he struggles with Lucifer over the fate of an ordinary family in crisis, setting for himself a dramatic test with distinctly human conflicts.

Cast

Production

On February 1, 2014, the cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki told Deadline that he is going to work on a film in the desert with his friend Rodrigo García and Ewan McGregor. He said "It's a tiny little beautiful, extraordinary script that Rodrigo wrote that we’re going to shoot for five weeks." On February 5, 2014 two actors, Ewan McGregor and Tye Sheridan, joined the film cast. McGregor plays the dual roles of a holy man and a demon. The film is written and directed by Rodrigo García, while Division Films and Mockingbird Pictures produced the film. Ayelet Zurer and Ciarán Hinds play the roles of Sheridan's character's parents. The film premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival. The movie was shot at Anza-Borrego Desert State Park in the Colorado Desert of Southern California.

The film was awarded the Dolby Family fellowship, a grant that allows filmmakers to finish their sound design and mix in Dolby Atmos. Sound Designers and Re-recording mixers J.M. Davey and Zach Seivers completed the original sound design and mix as well as the Dolby Atmos remix. Skip Lievsay, who won the Academy Award for Best Sound for his work on Gravity, served as a mentor to Davey and Seivers for the Atmos remix.

Reception

The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 75% approval rating based on 56 reviews. The consensus is: "Last Days in the Desert offers enough stately grandeur and spiritual exploration to offset an occasionally ambiguous narrative." On Metacritic, the film achieved an average score of 68 out of 100 based on 19 reviews, signifying "generally favorable reviews".