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| This
is really happening: Carpenter in The Exorcism of Emily
Rose. |
A
Case for Evil
By
Ann Morrow
The
Exorcism of Emily Rose
Directed
by Scott Derrickson
The
Exorcism of Emily Rose is a thoughtfully spooky film that
revolves around an exorcism. And so it has that similarity
to The Exorcist. But Emily Rose, which is based
on a true story that occurred in Germany 30 years ago, is
very much its own film, subdued and chilling rather than horrifying,
and grounded in reality for greater lengths than could reasonably
be expected. In it, Emily (Jennifer Carpenter), a studious
Midwestern farm girl, goes off to a university and is possessed
by a demon in her dorm room. At least, that’s what she thinks
is happening. And so do her pious, poorly educated parents,
and their parish priest, Father Moore (Tom Wilkinson). The
university doctor diagnoses her with a rare form of epilepsy
and puts her on antipsychotic medication. It doesn’t work,
and Emily’s violent seizures and terrifying paranoia—she sees
ordinary people dissolve into ghouls—become life-threatening.
Her limbs contort, and the pendulum swings: After too many
years of graphic gore and slice-and-dice editing, here is
a movie (by little-known writer-director Scott Derrickson)
that produces shiver after shiver with such conventional virtues
as pacing (the opening scene casts a lasting pall), motivation,
and cinematography (by Tom Stern) that pays attention to composition,
mood, and setting. One of Stern’s most unnerving flourishes
is the rolling eye of a panicked horse; one of his most haunting
images is of a windswept tree. And there are reasons why a
film about demons was able to attract a prestige cast that
includes Campbell Scott, one of the most discriminating talents
around. Scott plays a prosecuting attorney who is chosen for
his reputation as a devout Catholic. While Emily’s possession
and death are told in intensely atmospheric flashbacks, the
story’s many ramifications are invoked in the courtroom.
Father Moore, who conducted the exorcism, is charged with
negligent homicide. His defense attorney is Erin Bruner (Laura
Linney), a rising star at a powerhouse law firm. (In a moment
of dry humor, Moore asks her if she took his case for the
celebrity. “No,” she says. “To make senior partner.”) Erin
has been ordered by her superior (Colm Feore) not to put the
priest on the stand. But Moore is willing to lose his case
in order to tell Emily’s story, and in the (weirdly moving)
end, we find out why. Before that, though, the trial will
pit science against faith (the bewitching Shohreh Aghdashloo
makes a brief appearance as an anthropologist), regard blind
faith in pharmacology in the same light as religious zealotry,
and take objective notice of the loneliness of Erin’s work-hard,
drink-hard ambition. The most blood-freezing moment comes
when a medical expert for the prosecution says with conviction
that he would’ve given Emily electroshock therapy against
her will.
Both Linney and Scott are enjoyably canny at exposing the
acting skills of their respective lawyers, Wilkinson is quietly
affecting as a simple but determined man of God, and Carpenter,
as the gangly, cat-eyed Emily, is a powerful, even disturbing,
physical presence. Occasionally, the film is too conventional:
A crucial character is conveniently dispatched, and the revelation
about Emily’s divinity classes shouldn’t come as a surprise
to anyone.
But then the pendulum swings again, and what began as the
tale of a soul possessed turns out to be a testament to self-determination.
Cryin’-Out-Loud
Time
An
Unfinished Life
Directed
by Lasse Hallström
Try as she might, Jennifer Lopez simply cannot convincingly
depict Middle America. The lamentable An Unfinished Life
gives her all the trappings, from a Scandinavian name to a
wardrobe composed of Frye boots, Levis and low-cut peasant
blouses to a job slinging hash. It offers her countless opportunities
to say words like “fergit”; nevertheless, her very presence
screams Bronx. The funny thing is, her dreadful miscasting
is, in the scheme of the awfulness that is this movie, almost
unnoticeable. Almost.
Based on a novel by Mark Spragg, and adapted for the screen
by the author and his wife Virginia Korus Sprague, An Unfinished
Life dwells in a world of loss and survivor guilt. And
grizzly bears. Einar Gilkyson (Robert Redford) is the grieving
rancher who blames daughter-in-law Jean for the death of his
son, in a car accident, 12 years prior. He also grieves because
he’s a recovering alcoholic, his wife left him, and his best
friend and former ranchhand Mitch (Morgan Freeman) got mauled
by a grizzly one morning when Einar was too drunk to help.
One would expect the theft of a pickup truck to round out
the litany of woes that has befallen Gilkyson, but alas, this
is a Lasse Hallström movie and not a country song.
Einar’s days are spent playing nursemaid to Mitch, who was
left a near-cripple—which is not nearly half as bad as the
filmmakers’ plastering Freeman with scars that look more like
the rubberized vomit tricksters we used to buy at Spencer’s.
The routine is interrupted by the abrupt return of Jean and
the granddaughter, Griff (Becca Gardner), whom he never knew
existed. Just as predictable as the fact that Jean’s abusive
ex, Gary (Damian Lewis), will soon make an appearance are
such things as: Einar developing warm feelings for Griff;
Griff’s blossoming under her grandpa’s and Mitch’s tutelage;
and Mitch’s never-ending supply of folksy witticisms and saintly
patience.
While guns make an appearance, and Einar has been shown to
be no slouch with his fists, the movie is excruciatingly bereft
of the kind of action that might give it a modern-day revenge-western
motif. Hallström is more interested in sentiment, not action,
so that when Einar and sheriff Crane (Josh Lucas) run Gary
out of town, it’s a surprising, and unbelievable, soft rush.
Mitch makes a big deal about the need to release the grizzly
that mauled him, and we’re supposed to gather from this some
greater message about repression and freedom—but given Gary’s
reprieve, we have to wonder if his sorry self isn’t, like
the bear, a misunderstood soul. Such is the confusion that
results from the Spragg’s and Hallström’s mishmash of psychobabble
and sentiment.
The most appalling contribution to An Unfinished Life,
as stated earlier, is not J. Lo, but Redford, who appears
as stuffed and lifeless as a taxidermied animal. What happened
to the gleam in the eye, the innate intelligence that suffused
his greatest performances? Were these, like his good looks,
victim to too much sun and bad plastic surgery? While he can
still toss off an amusing one-liner, he’s simply got no presence,
no command of the screen. While it’d be easy to blame this
stinker of a movie as the underlying reason, it seems to go
deeper. The only solution is to go home and pop in that copy
of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, in order to
find the world, and our beloved actors, as we’d like them
to be.
—Laura
Leon
A
Matter of Time
The
Man
Directed
by Les Mayfield
Now, dear reader, you’re going to get a brief peek behind
the scenes with the critic. Excited? This is an insider’s
view of what goes into the “movie review process.”
How, you may be wondering, is a movie like The Man
chosen as a review subject? It’s a matter of priorities. This
week, the two most likely new films of interest to readers
were, well, the movies critiqued in the reviews you just finished
reading. That left a couple of movies, frankly, that were
of lesser interest. (Translation: The film is likely either
to be a stinker or not going to be around in theaters long
enough for the review to be of any service.) And how does
one choose between films of “lesser interest”?
In this case, running time: The Man is only 83 minutes
long. Unfortunately, the audience feels every one of those
83 long minutes.
The whole mess is a shame, though, because the idea of pairing
Eugene Levy with Samuel L. Jackson is a good one. Not because
we need another Hollywood buddy flick—God knows we don’t—but
because they’re both talented and entertaining enough to make
something like this work.
Something “like” this, but not The Man. It would be
easy to catalog its many failures, so why not? The story plays
the race card badly, but not badly enough to be offensive.
The plot wouldn’t fill an episode of Kojak (either
version). The use of coincidence is clever, but the rest of
the action is so mechanical (and unconvincing) that the story’s
few deft moments are squandered. The biggest laughs originate
with fart jokes.
That said, Levy—a dental equipment salesman who stumbles into
the middle of a ATF investigation led by Jackson—has one moment
of triumph near the end. After going through shootouts and
ass-whippings and some time in lockup, he gets to make his
big speech at the dental-equipment sales convention. And,
just as he imagines in the film’s opening scene, he kills;
the salesmen stand and cheer.
That’s about it. After that, it’s more shooting and farting
and grown men calling each other “bitch.”
Now, dear reader, do you have some appreciation for what the
critic goes through on your behalf? OK, you’re right: It was
just 83 minutes.
—Shawn
Stone
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