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.