Calvary Review

Calvary

Plot

Brenden Gleeson plays father James a catholic priest who during confession is told by an undisclosed person that they had been abused by catholic priests and that they planned to kill father James at weeks’ end because killing a bad priest would accomplish nothing but killing a good priest who stood idly by and did nothing would be impactful and mean something.

Theming

Grief and disassociation

The films main theme is grief and the different ways people process and handle that grief. The film I told day by day leading up to the end of the week during this time we see father James counsel his flock and although Brenden Gleeson is extremely compelling as father James the film really come together with its supporting cast Aidan Gillen plays Frank Harte a desensitised doctor. There’s a pivotal scene where a man has just been killed in an accident and father James is speaking to his widow, after this he speaks with Frank who appears un-phased by what had happened and speaks of the event dismissively and through a display of gallows humour. As a doctor he deals with life and death everyday he’ had to learn to disconnect in order to survive and later on in the film Frank tells terrible story of his early days in doctoring. It would appear he is intentionally saying horrible things just to upset father James but is it possible that through his damaged psyche this was his attempt to cry out for help?

Another character is Michael Fitzgerald played by legendary comedian Dylan Moran, a multi-millionaire with everything he could possible want feels an emptiness in his life and a disconnection from those around him. His method of dealing with this is to delve into Nihilism, he intentionally pushes peoples buttons to elicit a hostile response.

Chris O’Dowd plays a butcher disassociating from those around him to escape the grief of hi failing marriage and promiscuous wife he uses humour as a defence mechanism to fain apathy. If you know Chris O’Dowd mostly from “IT Crowd” I will tell you this role will make you completely change what you think you know about him and his acting abilities because this is one of the most heart-breaking powerful and funny performances I’ve ever seen.

We learn that father James probably jumped into religion because of the death of his wife and the undisclosed would-be killer is clearly dealing with the grief of his abuse and lost innocence by lashing out at the world.

Faith and forgiveness

Grief is in a lot of ways a factor that can lead people to faith but it can also shatter faith, this is another theme the film explores whether that be Faith in god or faith in people. Domhnall Gleeson plays a Freddy Joyce a former pupil of father James and convicted serial killer, father James visits him in prison which the towns people are less than thrilled about. This brings up the question of the limits of forgiveness, Freddy himself believes that if he repents he will go to heaven. Another character “Veronica” played by Orla O'Rourke describes herself to father James as “a lost cause” to which father James says that nobody is a lost cause. It’s a very difficult debate the limits of mercy and forgiveness are people like Freddy Joyce worthy only of hatred, in a just world would he be made to suffer every pain he inflicted on others, is it only the cry of the self-righteous to say “turn the other cheek”. I’ll end this segment with a quote from the conversation between Freddy and father James, Freddy asks father James “do I look like a monster to you?” to which father James responds “I don’t Know…...What does a monster look like?”.

Comedy?

I am a strong believer that there should be no topics forbidden for comedic purposes, I would preface that by saying that people deal with serious topics in different ways and humour even distasteful is a perfectly natural way of processing: grief, anxiety, fear, etc.

So having said that a dark comedy about the institutionalised paedophilia in the catholic church certainly pricked by ears up. The film could have gone either way depending on the level of sensitivity they handled the topic with the film never goes as far as to trivialize the issue. The comedy of the film is tremendously dry and dead-pan; it’s almost always delivered through the films dialogue and that suits the film very well considering the severity of the subject matter.

Conclusion

Calvary isn’t just content to make you laugh it will challenge your perception on a death, faith, grief and many other topics its truly does feel like this movie captures the human condition and lays it bare on the screen in all its ugliness. It then assures you that despite such overwhelming darkness we can be good, we can get better, we can forgive. It’s a funny thoughtful movie and you owe it to yourself to watch it.

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