Movie Review: "Calvary"

"Calvary": B-.  Father James (Brendan Gleeson) is the pastor of a Catholic church in a small seaside village in Northern Ireland.  He is a bear of a man, standing tall with his long graying reddish hair and snowy beard. He is a physical presence as he makes his way around the village, following up on a woman who sports a bruise under her eye (an apparent victim of abuse), consoling a young grieving widow, downing a pint at the local pub, visiting an elderly writer who lives on the outskirts, fly fishing in a local stream, and mixing in with his parishioners in various shops around town.  He is there for whoever needs him.  His life has purpose.  He has the demeanor of a college professor, self assured, steady and reliable.

In the opening scene Father James listens in the confessional, where he can't see what sounds like a young male who has entered the adjoining "box," ostensibly to confess his sins to the priest.  Instead, the man calmly advises Father James that he is going to kill him on the beach the following Sunday, one week away. The man's calm and apparently rational conversational tone makes what he says even more chilling.  He holds no personal grudge against this particular priest.  On the contrary, the troubled man's plan is to right a wrong from the days of his youth by killing a good priest.  He figures that would hurt the Church more than dispatching an evil one.

How does Father James respond?  To an outside observer, the priest's reactions belie the turmoil he must feel within.  He does not jump out of the confessional to confront, or even identify, the purported penitent. He continues with his day and with his week as if he'd never heard the threat.  Other than knowing the potential murderer is a man, we, the viewers, do not know who he is.  In many respects the story plays out like an Agatha Christie novel.  Every time we are introduced to one of the townsfolk, we wonder if he is The One.

One of the film's sidebars is Father James' relationship with his daughter, Fiona (Kelly Reilly).  We find out that James was married before he became a priest, and Fiona was an only child.  After James' wife died, James devoted himself to his new-found vocation, enrolling in a seminary and eventually becoming ordained, whereas he should have placed his priorities with his daughter.  Now that she is an adult, she still loves her father and has (for the most part) forgiven him. Yet, that does not stop Fiona from calling her father out for his past decision when she needed a parent.  The irony is obvious.  The priest is in the business of forgiving people for their sins, yet he is the one who cannot fulfill his vocation without being forgiven by his daughter.

The story is a little one-dimensional.  The days of the week are identified like chapters as we progress toward the potentially fateful Sunday.  The fact that we know the murder is planned for that day takes some of the tension away. If I were the script writer, I probably would have had the would-be murderer in the confessional tell the priest "by the end of the week" instead of "next Sunday."  Keeping the audience more on edge would have been an improvement.

For such a small village, it certainly has its share of kooks.  The chief of police, the butcher, the auto mechanic, the doctor, the neighboring millionaire landowner, even the pub owner; there's something about each of them that is oddly off-base.  Nevertheless, director John Michael McDonagh gives us an excellent portrayal of what life would be like in a remote, non-touristy town on the coast of Northern Ireland.  The story is more a character study of how the priest goes about his business in the face of a death threat than it is a whodunit (or who's gonna do it).  The people of his parish need help, and as their priest he is in a position to help them.  But are his efforts paying off?  As he gets closer to the targeted Sunday, what Father James experiences causes him to at least question his effectiveness.  Kudos to actor Gleeson for his ability to educe the many emotions of a complex man.