Eagerly anticipating this week ... (15-24)

Eagerly anticipating this week ... (15-24)
John Crowley's We Live in Time (2024)

8/30/2014

Calvary (2014) - McDonagh stands up to moral decline and for faith and the Catholic church in spite of everything



+ Best Irish Movie of the Year

Brendan Gleeson in ecclesiastical robe for the poster for John Michael McDonaugh's Calvary, (which actually gives away the film's ending, if you analyze its elements)

In confession, Irish Father James receives a random death threat due to the crimes of the past from another man of the cloth. In the week leading up to his possible assassination by the unknown perpetrator  we get to know some of the members of the priest's fairly miserable congregation and the man himself.

Irish writer/director John Michael McDonagh (The Guard (2011)) moves up in the European cinematic 'league' with a more serious film here: Calvary is a religiously themed dramedy that both has society-critical bite and a really good priest-hero in Brendan Gleeson (The Guard), who inhabits the part as the region's fallible lodestar with integrity. 
Calvary also encumbers a contemplative treatment of the dark and widespread sexual crimes of the Irish Catholic church. It is painful to see, how the church, - and basic faith along with it, - has fallen so low in esteem partly also as a regrettable bi-product of this.
Chris O'Dowd (Bridesmaids (2011)) is fantastic in the film, proving his worth to this critic for the first time as an also talented dramatic actor.
The film has beautiful Irish music by Patrick Cassidy (Kill the Irishman (2011)) and a good ending that points forward. Its tone is very permanent in its disdain for what it portrays as bewildered and sinful ways of people today, and this hard-bitten gloom and doom could have done with a splash of sunlight, say in the form of a child. Still the film has terrific characters, writing and performances.

Related posts:

2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 

Chris O'Dowd shows a hitherto unknown range and dramatic talent in John Michael McDonagh's Calvary


Watch the trailer for the movie here

Budget: 8 mil. $
Box office: 11 mil. $ (and counting)
= Flop

What do you think of Calvary?

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