Reviewed
by Lamar Kukuk
2/14/11
If
no one believed in demonic possession and/or exorcism, Hollywood would
have had to invent them, because the whole spectacle just makes for great
cinema. But many people do believe in them, so most modern exorcism
movies walk a deliberate line between exploitation and documentation.
The Rite may be the closest thing we've ever had to an “exorcism
drama”, tracking a young seminary student through a crisis of faith while
studying under a veteran exorcist in Rome. It's “suggested” by the
book The Making of a Modern Exorcist by Matt Baglio, which documents
a similar relationship between two men of whom these characters are fictionalized
versions. Of course, neither of them ever claims to have actually
been possessed, with the other having to exorcise him, which is probably
why the end credits of The Rite contain not one but two disclaimers
letting us know that while all this is kinda sorta vaguely inspired by
a suggestion of a true story, it's really all made up. But that doesn't
stop it from being an interesting little movie, with Anthony Hopkins in
his cynical/sinister wheelhouse and a strong performance by Colin O'Donaghue
as the student who needs to step up to the big leagues well before his
time. This IS a character study about people who travel in a horror
movie world as opposed to an actual horror movie, and genre fans looking
for more conventional thrills might find themselves quite bored by a film
whose deliberate pace occasionally tested my interest. But if you
take it on its own terms, The Rite is a solid chance to mull what
the world would be like if there really were a demon-possessed human on
every block. Or, as many Catholics would say, what the world is like.
Michael
Kovak (Colin O'Donoghue) was raised by an emotionally distant mortician
(Rutger Hauer) who gave him only two real choices after the traumatic death
of his mother: follow in his footsteps or join the Priesthood.
He chose the later, primarily to get away from home, but after four years
in Seminary School, found himself ready to bail before taking his vows.
Father Matthew (Toby Jones), who's witnessed him giving Last Rites to a
dying woman in the street after a car accident, believes in Michael's potential
and strong-arms him into attending a class in Rome on Exorcism. It's
taught by Father Xavier (Ciaran Hinds), who quickly tires of his relentless
challenge to the faith-based underpinnings of exorcism theory and refers
him to Father Lucas Trevant (Anthony Hopkins), who performs daily exorcisms
for the locals. To Lucas, Evil is as real as sunshine and he does
not question as he relentlessly grinds away at the daily ritual of fighting
the demon inside a pregnant woman (Marta Gastini) Michael believes is simply
mentally ill. The skeptical student tells his side of the story to
Angeline (Alice Braga), a reporter auditing Xavier's class for an article,
but the question of whether demonic possession is real becomes far more
pressing and personal once Lucas himself begins to display the telltale
signs that he is not alone in his body...
Since
you could believe you were possessed while mentally ill and believe you
were mentally ill but actually have a demon inside you, the question of
whether exorcism is science or superstition can only be answered at a higher
pay grade than my own. But it is interesting to see a movie take
the practice so seriously that it can actually be called a drama.
Michael's journey is at least as much about overcoming his grim childhood
as learning how to make the Power of Christ compel a demon to reveal its
name, and while none of The Rite's individual elements are terribly
novel, the way they're combined certainly is. For a long time, he
sees nothing that couldn't be the work of a mentally troubled person with
the instincts of a carnival mentalist, and it makes his ultimate embrace
of his calling more resonant to have him set such a high bar of proof.
A number
of very good actors make this possible. O'Donoghue does a great job
of seeming like a fish out of water in the middle of all of this while
still having the seriousness of purpose and gravity of demeanor necessary
to make us believe he can come out the other end as a legitimate Priest.
Hopkins gets a great opportunity to play a lot of his favorite notes and
doesn't waste it: Father Lucas is casual about truly shocking things
and has a good sense of humor about how few people truly believe what he
does. But once the demon takes up residence inside him, he's by turns
wonderfully sinister and delightfully vile. Director Mikael Hafstrom
isn't afraid to quote The Exorcist repeatedly and also uses his
star to make an entertainingly deliberate shout out to The Silence of
the Lambs at one point. Hauer is terrific as just the kind of
father whose hollowed-out soul could put a child on a morally conflicted
path, Gastini does an excellent job walking the line the story requires
between possessed and sick, and Jones and Hinds do a great job of delivering
lived-in performances as characters who exist primarily to deliver exposition.
Braga's not as successful at surmounting the improbable nature of her character,
who seems shoehorned into the proceedings so the movie can have a leading
lady who's not a nun.
As
I mentioned, originality isn't Mafstrom's co-pilot behind the camera, but
he does make excellent use of an unusually large loop group to create a
world alive with off-camera sounds that persuade us that the extras are
real people and that at least one of the possessions depicted is totally
legit. On the other hand, he's not afraid to go to the dreaded “jumping
cat” shock scene to keep the attention of any horror buffs threatening
to doze off in the back rows. And that's pretty much The Rite
in a nutshell: surprisingly serious and effective at times, padded
out with a lot of filler that doesn't work quite as well. But it's
well-acted, thoughtful and ultimately pretty interesting, especially for
those who're buying what it's selling and those of us who don't mind doing
a little theological window shopping. |
