rated PG 

One little girl sitting near me in the theater watching “The Nativity Story” had some questions. “Is that Joseph?” she asked. “When are they getting married?” she asked after we had been introduced to Mary. There were many others, and the mom, ever patient, answered every single one as best she could.

It wasn’t in any way annoying. It was refreshing. The girl was engaged by the story, and the mother, rather than trying to quiet a naturally inquisitive child, was doing her best to help her understand this mysterious narrative. This, to me, was exactly the kind of reaction you want from “The Nativity Story.” Most Hollywood films dealing with a Christmas (I said the word!) theme are so blunt they are better described as an assault rather than entertainment.

“The Nativity Story” has no aspirations other than to relay the events leading up to the birth of Jesus. There is no modern or revisionist interpretation here. It is not afraid or ashamed of its faith.

This is, in the end, the anti-“Passion of the Christ,” which was a financial success at the box office, but one that came at the price of brutal controversy. There will be no controversy generated by “The Nativity Story,” for which we should be grateful. (However, the same cannot be said for the young star, Keisha Castle-Hughes, 16, who became pregnant before the film’s release.) As the holiday season becomes ever more crass and interminable—and we will remember 2006 as the year in which midnight sales at big box stores finally made Thanksgiving Day just another day to shop—this humble, quiet, unpretentious film should be looked upon as a gift.

We open with King Herod’s (played by Irish actor Ciaran Hinds) murder of the innocents, in which he hopes to kill this unnamed “messiah” with whom he has become so obsessed. These opening moments are quick and unnerving, then the film flashes back to “one year earlier” in Nazareth, where the villagers are going about their everyday lives.

I was enthralled with this look at life 2000 years ago. The village scenes are not gummed up with big-budget pretensions and computer-generated grandiosity, but simply show villagers who live in small stone huts tanning hides, making goat cheese, gardening—everything has a nice, general rhythm to it. Director Catherine Hardwicke (“Thirteen,” “The Lords of Dogtown”) clearly has an interest in the lives of young people, especially those who may be considered outsiders.

And who could be more of an outsider than Mary (Castle-Hughes)? She helps her poor family earn their modest living until their difficult economic conditions cause her parents to marry her off to the hard-working Joseph (Oscar Isaac, in a gentle, persuasive performance). But unsure of this decision, Mary leaves home to decide her future. She is the original rebellious child.

Sitting under a tree during a quiet moment alone, Mary is visited by the angel Gabriel (Alexander Siddig), and, of course, the Immaculate Conception unfolds. Mary returns to Nazareth visibly pregnant, and the sin of this is obvious but not overstated (“You could be stoned for this,” says Mary’s mother.) But she is not—Joseph, too, has a vision. He knows he loves both Mary and her baby, and he protects them.

Under Herod’s orders, people are ordered back to their homelands, forcing Joseph and Mary to return to Jerusalem at the time of Christ’s birth. The parallel story to their travels is the journey of the Magi, the three wise men—here played as goofy brethren for a little comic relief—who trek months across the desert following the stars.

The look of all the actors feels just right—there are no villagers from central casting—and the music (by Mychael Danna) is appropriate without being overwhelming (more than one faith-based film has been drowned out by the score). The photography (by Elliott Davis, who also shot Hardwicke’s two previous films) is expansive and generous. For once we actually get to see the landscape where these Biblical events purportedly unfolded—the desert dunes, the rocky terrain, the small villages—so that by the time the movie ends, we feel as though we’ve actually been to new places.

And we know how the movie ends, of course. Hardwicke decided not to direct these final scenes with a comic amount of majesty or pomposity. The temptation to do so must be great, and directors with less taste have certainly given in to the impulse. The script, by Mike Rich, uses words as sparingly as any modern script I’ve heard lately.

While we know we are seeing the birth of Jesus, an event of almost incalculable impact on humankind, we are also seeing that the birth of any child is a quiet, joyous miracle. Perhaps the movie is telling us that all children, everywhere—just as that mother was doing with her child in the theater—should be treated with kindness and, yes, respect. You never know what they might accomplish if you do.