Review of The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005) by Rachel C — 30 Oct 2009

As faith vs. reason arguments go, there are far better ones out there than "The Exorcism of Emily Rose." But dammit if the actors don't elevate the material into something pretty decent.

Tom Wilkinson plays Father Moore, a Catholic priest on trial for the negligent homicide of Emily Rose (Jennifer Carpenter) who died during a failed exorcism attempt. Laura Linney plays his defense attorney, an agnostic with partnership ambitions, and the great Campbell Scott is the Methodist who is prosecuting him.

The DA presents the case that Emily was epileptic and psychotic and needed to be hospitalized, not exorcised. Father Moore insists it was the demons, and his lawyer has to somehow turn that into a defense.

The best part of the movie is the performance of Jennifer Carpenter (of Showtime's great "Dexter") as Emily, a girl clearly tormented by something. The movie loses its grip on plausibility only as the defense attorney presents a "what if possession is possible" as her sole defense. Such defenses would simply not work in a court of law.

The horror moments are nicely executed but a little too scarce for my taste, and the "message" of the movie seems to be that poor old Emily existed only to persuade the world that demons and god might, just might, exist. Why a merciful god would torture a 19 year old girl, rather than simply appear in the sky in front of a news camera for ten or fifteen seconds, just reinforces my opinion that god is kind of a douchebag.

The verdict handed down is the correct one, and the sentence is meant to represent a compromise between both sides of thought on the debate. It is not a realistic sentence.

And while the movie is good and interesting and promotes some great discussion, it's important to remember that people DO die, all the time, in a prayer circle while all they needed to survive was basic medical attention. Exorcisms are performed with lethal, tragic results some times (like the South American story that inspired this film), and for almost 2,000 years Christians burned epileptics alive out of a belief in the possibility of possession.

Faith like that isn't to be admired ... if allowing a human being to needlessly die validates and rewards your faith, your faith is dangerously sociopathic.