Innocence

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Hilary Brougher/Starring: Sophie Curtis, Kelly Reilly, Graham Phillips and Linus Roache

Innocence is the greatest contribution to cinema in the last 75 years...

No, I'm kidding. If it were only that.

What it really is is a ridiculous time-waster made more so by a knee-slapper of a plot and a comatose performance by Sophie Curtis that wouldn't register as a blip on the most sensitive electrocardiograph. I thought she might be auditioning for a role as a doorframe but that requires acting skills beyond Curtis' range. I wish I could call what she appeared to be doing onscreen bad acting but it's something more akin to an episode of narcolepsy, though instead of falling asleep in the middle of sentences, she snoozes at the beginning and end of them too. Her character stays conscious long enough to attract a boy in school, but what he finds appealing about her mystifies me, for she radiates less heat than that of the refrigerator compartment that holds butter.

Curtis plays Beckett Warner, a teenage girl who loses her mother in a surfing accident during her family's beach holiday. Though an aneurysm is mentioned later as the cause, one could just as easily believe the mother willfully entered a shark's gullet to escape her hopelessly vacuous daughter.

Her grieving father, Miles (Linus Roache) moves the family to New York City, where he enrolls Beckett at Hamilton Prep, which seems very ordinary save for the all-female staff. The women, all sexy and youthful, gather regularly for a book group though they don't invite Beckett's father, who is a writer of some renown though it's never clear what it is he actually writes. The fact that he is a writer seems strange, given his terrible skills at Scrabble later in the film. Maybe we're meant to believe he writes pop-up books.

While Beckett contends with the loss of her mother, a fellow student commits suicide by leaping to her death from the school roof. Her body nearly crushes Beckett's as it smashes on the pavement. Concerned for her mental health, Beckett is taken into the care of the school nurse, Pamela Hamilton (Kelly Reilly, in a silly role); who also happens to be a descendant of the school's founder. Beckett also attends therapy sessions with the school shrink, Dr. Vera Kent (Sarita Choudhury). Pamela takes a special shine to Beckett and eventually becomes her father's lover.

Beckett befriends a classmate Jen Dunham (Sarah Sutherland), whose mother is a raging alcoholic and also a member of the book group. Beckett also strikes up a romance with one of the Hamilton boys, Tobey Crawford (Graham Phillips) whose mother is--you guessed it--a member of the mysterious book klatch.

Before long, Beckett discovers the book group is actually a witch's coven; one intent on sacrificing virgins like Beckett and her friend Jen for reasons I assume deal with prolonging their lives and preserving their beauty. I only hope they offered the girls free tuition; school costs are a killer these days.

Director Hilary Brougher fails to establish or generate a moment of fear or suspense. It doesn't help that her leading lady lacks the skill to emote convincingly during the few scenes she is actually required to do so. Kelly Reilly, who redeemed herself in the recently-released Calvary after an embarrassing turn in this year's Heaven is For Real (see my posting for that film in the April archive), is cursed again with a risible character. Doesn't it strike anyone as peculiar that a scion of the school's founder is relegated to the role of a nurse?

I should have brought a flashlight to the film because so many interior scenes--even in daylight--are shot in a dark, bluish-gray that don't establish a mood of mystery so much as stimulate speculation as to why the school hasn't paid its electric bill. As perplexing are the repeated shots of the night sky with full moons. A little Astronomy 101 might have educated the filmmakers about the unlikeliness, if not the improbability, of the appearance of so many full moons. I might have not noticed such niggling details if I had been absorbed in the story.

I really didn't care about Beckett or the ludicrous coven. Everything about the movie loudly proclaimed its own boneheadedness. Instead of sacrificing virgins, the coven might have been better off using their witchy magic to treat Beckett's Severe Personality Deficiency...or Sophie Curtis' underwhelming acting.

Where are you when we need you, Samantha Stephens?

Calvary

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: John Michael McDonagh/Starring: Brendan Gleeson, Chris O'Dowd, Kelly Reilly and M. Emmet Walsh

John Michael McDonagh follows up his irresistable The Guard with a darker, more dramatic film that is provocative and ultimately tragic. The exploration of morality and the Catholic church's struggle to stay relevant are the film's more salient concerns. It is a film that leaves you breathless and silently reflective with its power and its willingness to portray the church critically. It is also brave enough to examine the contradictions and incomprehensibilities of God and the Church and how both often fail to address both mundane and deeper issues that trouble those seeking psychic or spiritual succor.

The film wastes little time thrusting us into the story. Father James Lavelle (a superb Brendan Gleeson) is a priest in a small, Irish seaside town who receives a death threat during a confession. The confessor first reveals how he had been orally and anally raped repeatedly by a priest in his youth; a shocking confession which Father Lavelle is ill-prepared to hear. The confessor asks that the Father meet him on a beach in a week, at which time he will kill him. Father Lavelle doesn't panic or become hysterical but receives the threat calmly.

Lavelle eventually seeks advice from his superior; Bishop Montgomery, whose casual reaction is almost funny. The Bishop essentially leaves the matter to Lavelle's discretion. Though Lavelle tells the chief of police he is aware of the confessor's identity, it remains a mystery to us.

We meet the townsfolk who see Lavelle on a regular basis; some seeking advice or counsel while others seek absolution for crimes or thoughts of suicide.

Among those Lavelle hears out or dispenses advice to in his daily encounters are an aging American writer (M. Emmet Walsh), a young man with a feeble romantic life, a promiscuous woman named Veronica (Orla O'Rourke) who was recently abused by either her husband Jack (Chris O' Dowd) or by her lover Simon (Isaach De Bankole). Another is a wealthy, cynical, amoral man whose wife and kids have left him, a doctor who has little patience or tolerance for Lavelle's faith or the church, a foreign woman whose husband is killed in a local traffic accident, and an incarcerated serial killer whose insincere pleas for absolution anger Lavelle. Lavelle also contends with a young hustler who offers his services indiscriminately, a fellow priest whose lack of passion and integrity elicits an angry rebuke from Lavelle and his daughter Fiona, who has just recently attempted suicide.

It is important to itemize the characters, because each has a unique relationship with Father Lavelle, with varying degrees of suspicion, contempt, cynicism, or trust. It is fascinating to see how low the Catholic church has sunk in most people's estimation and how little respect is accorded priests. Lavelle's committment to his faith is undeniable. His love and concern for those who seek his help is also without question but he is constantly the target of derision by most of the town.

As the days are counted off--with subtitles--to the fateful meeting, we see that almost any of the townspeople, save the women, could conceivably be the Confessor.

It would be reductive to interpret the film as anti-catholic. The film doesn't condemn the church but it doesn't spare it scorn and biting criticism (all justified) either. It also doesn't withhold bewilderment of how God can forsake his creations in horrific ways. In one scene where Lavelle sits in the local pub, the local doctor (Aidan Gillen) approaches his table to tell the Father about a three-year old boy who was once improperly anesthetized, which rendered the child deaf, dumb and paralyzed. The doctor asks Father Lavelle to imagine how frightening it must have been for the child to wake in a prison where he felt abandoned. Why the doctor would share such a horrific story perplexes the Father but it underscores how religion and the church ineffectively explain why a loving and merciful God could permit such a tragedy.

As the day approaches, Father Lavelle becomes the target of harrassment and violence. Someone burns the church to the ground though the townsfolk seem to be blithely unconcerned. Another grisly act is committed during the week; with culpability pointing to the Confessor but the film effectively blurs the distinction between those with a solid motive and those without.

We see that Father Lavelle's spiritual ministrations have a profound effect on some while others remain disdainful or suspicious. Every character's story is moving in its own way and how Father Lavelle contends with each not only demonstrates his versatility for dealing with an array of problems, but his capacity to suffer scorn and ridicule. He is a Christ-figure, to be sure; and his imminent meeting with the Confessor is his Calvary. The murder threat and the town's hostility are spiritual tests of sorts; trials that challenge his capacity to be compassionate and loving. That he has had his own troubled past with drink and neglecting his daughter makes his spiritual resolve all the more compelling.

McDonagh's camera work is striking. Stunning landscapes, captured in long shot and in slow moving aerial shots, coupled with subtle interior compositions, make for startling visual contrasts.

The numerous shots of the surrounding landscape, all visually arresting, present a kind of Biblical Eden where the storm and stresses of the character's lives play out. I liked the way McDonagh composed the actors; sometimes slightly off-center, near the frames periphery, which lent backgrounds and colors accentuation. We also see the same with outdoor cinematography, where faces and people share screen-space with the sea or a landscape.

Though the supporting cast is outstanding, it is Gleeson's exceptional presence around which everything and everyone seems to orbit. He wears his flaws and virtues and his unshakeable morality and integrity as he does his black, priestly vestments. The performance is astounding, one that will no doubt remain prominent when the year-end critical encomiums are lavishly showered on award nominees.

Calvary is something to see. It is a powerful, sometimes disturbing but achingly beautiful film that renders one thoughtfully silent but also exhilarated. It isn't often one gets to feel that way after a film.

Heaven is for Real....Suckers?

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Randall Wallace, Starring: Greg Kinnear, Thomas Haden Church, Margo Martindale and Kelly Reilly

Based on Todd Burpo's New York Times bestseller of the same name, Heaven is for Real is part of a recent trend of religiously themed films coming out of Hollywood: Son of God, Noah, and God is Not Dead, with Ridley Scott's Exodus: Gods and Kings slated for a December release.

Heaven is for Real tells the story of Todd Burpo and his family, who reside in a small, farming community in Imperial, Nebraska. After his son Colton (Connor Corum), experiences a near-death experience while in the hospital battling a severe fever, he begins to talk casually about seeing angels and visiting heaven. His father, who is a minister in the community church (played earnestly by Greg Kinnear), begins to take his son's accounts seriously. When Todd begins to incorporate his son's experiences into his Sunday sermons, it makes members of the congregation uneasy and his wife a little annoyed. Beset by hospital bills and Todd's shaky income from his garage door installation business, his wife feels his focus should remain on their financial woes, not their son's heavenly preoccupations.

A weepy, tender score accompanies nearly every scene until it almost becomes deafening; its maudlin violins a cue that the movie won't offend or upset the frail sensibilities of the audience. Everyone in Imperial seems so unbelievably upbeat and friendly they make Up With People seem like bitter cynics.

While others dismiss their son's experiences as imaginative ravings, Todd is convinced his son's visions are real when Colton tells him about seeing his dead grandfather in heaven. Todd shows him a picture of his grandfather as an elderly man which Colton doesn't recognize until he is shown another photo of him in his younger years. Colton identifies the man as the one he had seen, informing his dad that in heaven, "everyone is young." What exactly constitutes "young" in heaven is anyone's guess. Colton also shocks his skeptical mother later when he mentions his "other sister," a baby the Colton's lost in the womb and whose gender was never disclosed to the family. Todd's wife Sonja (Kelly Reilly), has been grieving the loss of her daughter, so when Colton talks of his sister--someone he couldn't have possibly known about--his mother begins to believe her son.

Heaven is for Real isn't the appallingly witless mess God is Not Dead was, but it has it's share of eye-rolling nonsense that will guarantee a chuckle, if not a guffaw.
One such scene finds Todd questioning his son about his heavenly visits. In recalling one incident, Colton describes a visit to the church where his father preaches. While Colton sits alone in a pew, the wall behind the altar dissolves into serene clouds and sky. Angels appear, singing, which prompts Colton to ask them if they might sing We Will Rock You to which they respond with laughter. The scene is cloyingly cute but it only worsens when we see someone dressed in white robes approach Colton in the aisle. You got to be kidding me, I thought; weren't the angels enough? No, we get his holiness too though we don't see his face. More on that later.

Given Todd Burpo's financial troubles, you'd think the angels might provide Colton something useful, like winning lottery numbers rather than stupid warbling. The deceased family members Colton sees don't seem to be any more useful.

Another curious scene is Todd's meeting with a psychologist to discuss his son's otherworldly experiences. Of course the doctor comes off as cold and unsympathetic-the typical characterization of science and scientists as hopelessly out of touch with the spiritual world-but later Todd mentions something Einstein said to buttress an argument for Colton's experiences. The religious want it both ways, I guess.

It all ends as one would expect; the congregation forgives Todd his talk of Colton's heaven though we never learn what became of the Burpo family's financial woes. The outcome is more violins, familial well-being, vast fields of golden wheat, peace and harmony, and not a problem in sight.

Wait a minute; what does Jesus look like? Let's get back to that. We see his robes in church but not his divine visage. In the final moments of the film, we see Todd sitting on the back porch as his children play; his attention riveted on an internet story of a girl who had an experience much like Colton's. A video of the girl painting a portrait reveals Jesus' face. When Todd shows the face to Colton, the boy says "Yeah, that's what he looks like." The audience might share my surprise to learn that Jesus is a dead ringer for Kenny Loggins! That's right; when you die, you'll be greeted at the pearly gates by one half of the 70s' pop duo Loggins and Messina.

Needless to say I left the theater trying hopelessly to suppress a giggle.