Noah extended thoughts

Here you'll find my extended thoughts on Noah. (Warning: Spoilers)

At one point, on the ark, Noah believes that he has to kill Ila's children in order to prevent mankind from continuing. Noah perceived this as god's will. Having not read the scripture, I didn't know what would happen next, which made me somewhat uncomfortable. It was extremely well executed, but up until the resolution I was a bit nervous about what the film was saying with this. I was relieved when it turned out that Noah couldn't bring himself to kill the infants. Still, I found his motivations for this left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth, even though I recognize that this is partially because of my own biases.

That said, Noah's internal conflict is interesting when you remove god from the equation. He's torn between what he sees as the right thing to do, and his horror at killing something he feels no hatred for. His eventual choice, that he couldn't bring himself to do it, speaks volumes about his character, especially as he comes to that conclusion at the last minute.

Ham is also an interesting character. He's torn between allegiances: He resents Noah for leaving his lover to die, but he also hasn't entirely dropped his loyalty to Noah. He's probably the strongest example of the three-dimensional nature of the characters present. Ultimately, he chooses Noah, concluding his character arc.

Then you have Ila herself. Her conflict initially comes from her infertility, as she feels Shem deserves someone who can bear his children. However, eventually, after gaining Noah's grandfather's blessing, and a random off-screen sex scene in the woods, it's discovered that she's pregnant with what turns out to be twin sisters. Noah, wanting to follow god's will, says he'll have to kill the child(ren) if they're female. This culminates in a scene where she looks away and begs him to make it quick, which is the climax of her story. As mentioned above, Noah can't do it. This diverts the thematic elements, and concludes Ila's character arc.