The Red Tent

It’s a bit of a mess.... Between the issues of race, tribalism, rape and consent, The Red Tent covers more ground than expected.

The film doesn't reinvent the Biblical fiction format but it is interesting enough to move you to read Diamant's take on ancient sisterhood.

Ferguson's voiceover hits the holiday season sweet spot: Just sentimental enough. Frankly decorous sex scenes and brutal conditions for men and women help save The Red Tent from becoming overly cloying. It's got just enough red blood pulsing through it to avoid that.

Fans of the novel will no doubt watch and revel in this relatively big-budget treatment. Others might find its pseudo-biblical, pseudo-feminist mix hard to take.

At times, you might mistake Lifetime's enjoyably earnest Biblical epic The Red Tent for an Old Testament version of Call the Midwife.

If it could be judged merely on the merits of its aspirations, The Red Tent would get two “you-go-girl!” snaps up. Unfortunately, how the miniseries turns those aspirations into drama leaves much to be desired over its four hours, stranding the viewer in a place as dry and desolate--and sometimes as confusing--as the desert inhabited by its characters.

It is at times charming and different, and a good fit for Lifetime. It just falls short of a higher calling.

With Minnie Driver and Morena Baccarin as two of Jacob’s wives, and Debra Winger as Dinah’s blunt-speaking grandmother, the story is engaging both as untold Biblical fable and modern-day television.

The biblical setting provides an arresting backdrop for soapy material that otherwise falls squarely in Lifetime’s wheelhouse.

The Red Tent would have benefited from more subtlety--hardly Lifetime’s stock-in-trade. Still, it is a major step up from the network’s usual fare of films.