Review of Calvary (2014) by Macdara B — 22 Aug 2014

First off, in case you're a lousy reader like I am, I must point out that "cavalry" and "calvary" are two very different words despite looking and sounding very much alike. The former refers to a group of soldiers who fight on horseback and the latter has something to do with the crucifixion of Christ. Being unfamiliar with the second, I originally thought this was a movie about the Civil War, especially since the poster shows a guy wearing a black shirt with lots of buttons like they wear in F-Troop. Apparently this is also what priests dress like in modern-day Ireland.

"Calvary" is an extremely disturbing movie. I'm not normally one to jump up when the credits start rolling, but once this ended, I couldn't wait to get outside to try to flush its depressing world from my psyche.

Set in a small Irish seaside village, it begins with Father James (Brendan Gleeson) hearing the confession of a man who claims he was sexually abused by a priest as a child, and based on some rationale I couldn't quite follow, has decided that killing a good, non-pedophilic priest - specifically Father James - would somehow be the best way to get revenge. Considerate assassin that he is, he schedules the murder for a week in the future to give James time to put his affairs in order.

First up is a visit from James' suicidal daughter, Fiona (freshly bandaged wrists and all) who lives in London. (Though priests aren't allowed to marry, James signed on after his wife died.) James and Fiona do a lot of walking through windswept landscapes with Fiona looking like a sad panda even though James is the one with the proverbial sword of Damocles hanging over his head (a fact he doesn't share).

Fiona isn't the only unhappy kid in town. There's also an awkward young man who wears a bow tie and is ready to off himself - or maybe join the army - because he's afraid he'll never get laid. Close behind on the depression scale is a rich man whose wife took the kids and left him and who's so eager to prove that his possessions no longer bring him joy that he takes a valuable painting off the wall and urinates on it. There's also an old bushy-browed writer with failing health who, though not particularly depressed, asks James to get him a gun so he can shoot himself when the time comes. Even James' dog is mopey.

In addition to being preternaturally gloomy, the people in this village also aren't very nice, especially to Father James as he goes around trying to help them. There's a wife-beater, a flagrant adulteress, an unrepentant serial killer, and a trash-talking atheist doctor to name a few.

Though the audience (and presumably James), doesn't know the identity of the potential killer, you can't really classify this is a mystery since no time is spent trying to figure it out either. It's actually listed as both a drama and a comedy, though the humor is very dark and sporadic. I find it hard to believe that anyone walks out of this film with a smile on their face.

Though Gleeson is excellent as Father James and a lot of scenes, especially those with James and Fiona, are quite good, there's no way I could recommend this to anyone I know. It's not that it's a bad movie; it's just that it conjures up a world that's even more disturbing than the one we actually live in.