My confession? Not a must-see
THOUGH THERE are undeniable similarities between Catholicism and J udaism, confession is not one of them. Their mass may be rooted in our Passover and many of their festivals derive from Jewish ones. But when it comes to atoning for sins, there is no absolution box in a synagogue. For this, rabbis should give a huge sigh of relief as listening to penitents off-load a wide range of mortal sins isn’t easy. And for the priest in John Michael McDonagh’s Calvary, the ritual turns out to be lifechanging.
Playedbythemarvellouslyunderstated and soulful Brendan Gleeson, Father James Lavelle is a well-intentioned, nonjudgmental priest serving a tightly knit community in a small village. All its inhabitants, including resident adulteress Veronica (Orla O’Rourke) and her potentially violent husband, Jack (Chris O’Dowd), the dodgy millionaire banker, Michael (Dylan Moran) and the cynical surgeon (Aiden Gillen), recklessly commit sins of one sort or another.
As none of the aforementioned, or anyone else for that matter, is repentant or remotely God-fearing, Father Lavelle’s role as a religious leader is in a sense redundant and he is more of a sounding-board and counsellor for his lost parishioners.
But it is an unseen parishioner who at the start of the film enters the confessional to tell the Father about his abuse at the hands of a priest when he was a child.
Violated from the age of seven, this desperate man has reached a point where vengeance is the only way to deal with his demons and with his tormentor no longer alive, the parishioner decides he must kill a priest. But to attract attention in a world that has grown indifferent to abuse, the “chosen” priest has to be a good man — cue Father Lavelle.
And so, with his death scheduled for the following Sunday, the kindly father tries to get on with more pressing matters such as sorting out his suicidal daughter (Kelly Reilly) and helping a local novelist plan his own funeral.
Amazingly there are some laughs to be had in this who-will-do-it? McDonagh has no trouble seeing the funny side of misery, bad behaviour and dissolution of faith right up to the bleak final scene. But while impressively literary, the script weighs heavily on some of the cast, who deliver rather than perform it. Only the gilded Gleeson does it justice, which is not enough to make this film a must-see.