Review of Calvary (2014) by Nathan M — 10 Jan 2015
A remarkable performance from Brendan Gleeson, a smart script, and a wonderful supporting cast makes Calvary a pretty great film. I really love these kind of "bottle episode" formats for films.
They end up feeling more like plays then they do feature films, but thanks to John Michael McDonagh's visual sense they succeed where other dialogue driven films do, it has a cinematic feel. At times it was a little too slowly paced, but I think this was intentional and most of the time it worked for me.
If you're hoping for this to be a thriller/mystery film, you'll be disappointed. This is a film about a man who is dealing with his own mortality, the mistakes of his past, and the meaning of his life.
Watching this priest deal with all of the citizens of this small town was pretty interesting. There are plenty of moments to laugh out loud and plenty that will tug at your heart strings. It's not a perfect film and probably not as good as McDonagh's last film The Guard, but there's so much to enjoy here it's definitely worth a watch.
This review of Calvary (2014) was written by Nathan M on 10 Jan 2015.
Calvary has generally received very positive reviews.
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