"IT'S A STORY ABOUT FORGIVENESS, change and renewal.
In the beginning, yes, Father
James meets a series of unrelentingly awful people, all of whom he suspects of
wanting to kill him. None of them are worthy of Father James' comfort and he
chooses to abandon his vocation.
Except he realises that the
millionaire Michael is simply hurting. When Father James recognises Michael's
genuine pain and asks for forgiveness from his daughter, he realises again the
importance of his life, work and the power of spirituality to bring comfort to
those lost and seemingly damaged.
That is why he returns. And that
is why Fiona seems ready to open up and at least listen to the murderer of her
father.
The film argues that salvation
and forgiveness is possible for even those who themselves believe that they
have crossed a moral precipice. The murderer thinks that the church is beyond
redemption and needs to be destroyed. Father James believed that people are
beyond lost and need to be abandoned. The film argues that both views are wrong
and it is only through change that we can begin to heal and stop hurting others
(and ourselves).” (Sharaz__Jek)
STATEMENT OF INTENTION
Sharaz__Jek, in the above Reddit
column, provides us with a helpful synopsis of Calvary. And, here, I
would only add a couple of points: Early in the movie, Father James Lavelle, a
priest in the small town of Easkey in northwest Ireland, receives a
parishioner’s confession. We don’t see who it is, but what he says is shocking,
detailing how, as a child, he was sexually abused by his parish priest, whose
crimes were never exposed. The parishioner has harboured a deep hatred and
loathing for the Catholic church and its clergy since that time. Decades later,
he yearns for revenge and announces in the confessional that he will kill
Father James in one week. His is not a confession, it is a statement of intent.
He chose Father James because he is a “good” priest, and his revenge would be
more complete, in his eyes, because of that fact. The movie chronicles the last
days of Father James’s life.
I CONFESS (no pun
intended) that Calvary was a bit of a surprise. I thought I would be
seeing the stereotypical Irish priest we are so accustomed to see on film—brusque,
a bit of a tippler, having the gift of the gab, acts as a spiritual lighting rod, and is a
solver of problems big and small within his parish. Father James, on the other
hand, is a recovering alcoholic. He has come to his vocation late in life
following the death of his wife. He has an adult daughter, Fiona, herself plagued
by a life of bad choices and relationships, and she has recently attempted
suicide. The two have been estranged for years, with Father James critical of
her lifestyle and her attempts at suicide which, according to church teachings, is a mortal sin. Fiona visits James during this time hoping for a
reconciliation between them. At one point she says his alcoholism during her
childhood alienated her, as did his later vocation which proved a barrier
rather than a bridge between them.
IN THE MOVIE, the dialogue is
rich and the banter plentiful with humorous asides, quips and witticisms from
the townspeople and Father James. But there is an element of malice beneath the
words. The dialogues invariably tend toward criticism, veiled and demonstrable,
or ridicule, disbelief even anger with, and disparaging assessments of, the
Church and Father Jame’s vocation. These last days prove to be his
Calvary. I agree with Sharaz when they say Father James has lost his vocation.
By this point, he sees his parishioners as irredeemable; they will do what they
will with their lives despite his advice, spiritual and otherwise, and there is little he can do
to change their ways. His relationship with them has become pro forma, a
perfunctory gesture, formulaic, futile. And they know it. Perhaps another way
of putting it is that he has lost his love for his fellow man. One example of
this is when he visits a deranged murderer in prison who says he wants to confess. After
listening to him, Father James tells the killer that to make a genuine
confession one must be truly contrite, something he deems lacking in the killer,
who he leaves to his madness without performing the Confessional rite. However,
it is shortly afterwards that he has a heart-felt talk with Fiona. They
reconcile after he asks her to forgive him for not understanding—for not trying
to understand—the depths of her despair and for not engaging with her when she needed
him most— growing up and as a young adult. In an emotionally charged scene the
two express their love for the other and Father James is heartbroken when she returns
to Dublin.
The final straw that breaks him
is an accusation that he was attempting to ‘groom’ a young girl he met on a walk to
the beach. He is undone by this experience and falls into a deepening “dark night of
the soul” with his spiritual life and the secular world around him never more at loggerheads. He goes to the village pub and begins drinking. The
village doctor, an ardent atheist and perhaps the most “unrelentingly awful” of all the people Father James encounters, tells Father
James a horrific tale of a young patient whose prognosis post-treatment is a "living hell". The priest is shattered and asks the doctor why would he tell him such a
terrible story. The doctor doesn’t answer but the subtext is clear: What
kind of God would make a child suffer so? How can you believe in such a God? There is no God.What say you to that, priest? Enraged by yet another assault on his vocation and beliefs,
Father James nearly attacks the doctor. Instead, he drinks far into the night, shoots-up the bar with a revolver*, and ends battered and bloodied in a brawl with the
tavern keeper.
FORGIVENESS
THE NEXT DAY, he decides he will quit the priesthood and flee from his
rendezvous with death. He drives to the regional airport for a flight to
Dublin. There he meets the wife of a tourist who’d died in Easkey. Earlier in the week Father James had performed the Last Rites for him as he lay comatose in hospital. Accompanying her late-husband's coffin, she says she is taking her husband “home”. The young widow had a
quiet dignity and unwavering faith in God and the Church, and as devastated as she was, nevertheless she says she will “keep going on”. As they talk, the two watch from inside the terminal as her
husband’s coffin is loaded by baggage handlers into the plane's cargo hold like..well,
baggage. The lack of reverence, of any regard for the transcendent in the modern
world, the cold, secular world filled with cynics, skeptics, unbelievers,
idolaters, and haters was encapsulated in that quiet scene at the airport.
INSPIRED by her faith and her will to persevere, Father James returns to
Easkey to resume his pastoral duties. On the morning of his death, he phones
Fiona to talk to her one last time. He says there has been too much talk
of sin and not enough about virtue. Asked what he thought was the greatest virtue, he replies "forgiveness". Each then forgives the other and Father James
leaves the rectory for the last time and walks to his final destination.
As he walks through town he encounters Gerald, the elderly American
writer, who asks if he can join him on his walk. Father James says no, given
what he is about to face. Gerald takes it as a rebuff and turns to walk away, but Father James asks him if he’s finished his book. Gerald says yes but he wasn’t
sure if it was any good. Father James said it will be “extraordinary” and that
Gerald was a very fine writer, cheering the old man greatly. As with Fiona,
Father James gives solace and affirms the Gerald’s value and sanctity in the
world.
HE WALKS TO THE CLIFFS overlooking the wild Atlantic and tosses the gun
away; he will go unarmed to meet his executioner. There, he encounters Michael,
a wealthy banker who contemplates suicide because life has no meaning for
him anymore. Father James consoles him, embracing him, and promises he will come by
his home later to talk with him. Another soul is touched, another spirit lifted
by the priest who has learned that his greatest goal is to honour others, to
understand and accept who they are and to love them unconditionally.
FINALLY, he walks to the beach where we see a figure approaching. It is
the town butcher, Jack Brennan. Here, I disagree with Sharez__Jek. I think
Father James knew all along it was Jack who would come for him. It makes sense
of some of the looks, venom, and veiled threats passing between the two in the
days leading up to the priest’s murder. Father James tells Jack it’s not too
late, that he doesn’t have to kill him. Jack disagrees saying it’s ordained, unstoppable. He's wrong, of course, there are always choices that can be made.The priest looks at Jack, refusing to look away as the butcher raises his
revolver. Father James's gaze is open, accepting what will come and, at the same time, accepting Jack unconditionally,
loving him even as Jack murders him. Jack cannot meet the priest's gaze and turns away as he pulls the trigger.
The movie ends with short depictions of the people whose lives Father
James had touched. Most seem to be living much as before. It is with Fiona,
Gerald, Michael, the young altar boy who witnesses the shooting and, perhaps, Jack that moments of grace are achieved.1
The final scene is of Fiona visiting Jack in prison. She is seated in
the glassed-off booth with a phone link prisoners use to talk with their visitors. She is calm, her gaze is tearful, and like her father’s, it is open, accepting. She will
listen to him without reservation. Jack is terrified of her, barely able to
approach the booth and sit. (I had the image of a devil, brought from the dark
depths to the surface, blinded by the light of a world he had long ago abandoned.)
What frightens Jack the most, I think, is he knows she will forgive his unforgivable act.
And then where will he be? What will he be? The road to redemption is always there even if it can be a difficult and rocky one.
MY APOLOGIES for the length of this review. I kept trying to describe
the movie (some gorgeous scenery, BTW). I could have simply said it’s a good watch, all-in-all.
CHEERS, JAKE.
_____________________________________
* At the beginning of the movie, Father James drops off some groceries
to Gerald Ryan, an elderly American novelist who is writing a book in a cottage
near town. He asks Father James for a gun with the unspoken purpose of using it
to end his life if he were to become disabled. Father James said he would try
to get him one. He does but, instead, keeps the revolver. He clearly means to keep it for self-protection against his would-be
assassin. Which is why he had a gun with
him at the pub.
👉It also reminds the viewer that Father James is on his own spiritual journey. He is human, with all the fralities and faults that entails. On his late night drive back from the airport he accepts the fact that he will face his own Golgotha the next day and he quietly prepares for whatever is to come.
1. Not everyone in town is changed by their relationship with Father James. Not everyone accepts or seeks unconditional love or expresses it. Moments of grace, the film tells us, are few and far between in life; they should be cherished and encouraged whenever they occur.
👉For GoT fans: Doctor Frank Harte (a misnomer if ever there ever was one),
who believes in the sanctity of no one, is a cold and heartless
character. An ending tableau after Father James’s murder has the good doctor
standing in an autopsy room. He is smoking a cigarette. There is a stainless-steel
bowl on the counter in front of him containing what looks like a human heart
and upon which he butts out his cigarette. He is someone you’d like to punch in his stupid face, if truth be told.
But FYI, the actor portraying Dr. Harte played Littlefinger in GoT, also
someone you’d like to punch in the face.
P.S. I just had an annoying thought: Are we to assume the heart is
Father James’s? Conceivably the priest could have been autospied in Easkey by Dr. Harte who sees human beings as machines that eventually break down, no more, no less. And no matter how he might ‘excavate’ Father James’s body, he will never encounter the priest's soul, nor come to regard his own.
P.P.S. A nice touch in the film is this landscape shot of Father James's altar boy painting the seascape in the moments before the priest is murdered. While Jack strides along the beach to meet his fate, Father James simply waits. The boy's painting is unfinished, the future is open, the last dab of colour has yet to be applied, if at all. Free will and choice are always at play; nothing is pre-ordained as Jack believes.
