March Film Club

Hey everybody, it's March!

Thank you to everyone who was able to attend Meek's Cutoff, it was a fine film and we had a good discussion afterwards.  Also, big shout-out to everyone who brought snacks, we really appreciate it!

For the month of March, I usually try to show a film that somehow relates to the Irish in honor of St. Patrick's Day, so, our film for this month is going to be Calvary, the second film by Irish director John Michael McDonagh (we watched his previous film, The Guard, last year).

Calvary is a 2014 Irish drama film written and directed by John Michael McDonagh.  It stars Brendan Gleeson, Chris O'Dowd, Kelly Reilly, Aidan Gillen, Dylan Moran and Isaach de Bankole.  The films follows Father James (Gleeson) as he takes confession from an unseen penitent who describes being abused as a child and then informs the priest that he will kill him in one week's time.  The film covers the week before the apparent final day, as Father James tends to his flock of misfits and miscreants, while bonding with his somewhat estranged daughter.

McDonagh conceived the idea and wrote the screenplay while filming The Guard.  He explained the intentions he had for the film: "There are probably films in development about priests which involve abuse.  My remit is to do the opposite of what other people do, and I wanted to make a film about a good priest."  He elaborates that it is tonally "in the same darkly comic vein as The Guard, but with a much more serious and dramatic narrative."

The film holds a 90% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 144 reviews.  Glenn Kenny, writing for Rogerebert.com, awarded the film 3.5/4 stars saying this in his review, "The second feature written and directed by the prodigiously talented Irishman John Michael McDonagh opens with a quote from Saint Augustine: 'Despair not, one of the thieves was spared; presume not, one of the thieves was not.'  A mordant sense of duality that eventually takes on near-apocalyptic dimensions runs through this very darkly comic tale, telling a week in the file of Father James.  McDonagh's structuring in unusual: almost all the scenes are what are referred to in the theater as 'two-handers', that is, exchanges between only two characters.  Each scene tackles a particular variation on the movie's theme, which is the earning of forgiveness, and whether taking what's said to be the right action is sufficient to do so.  Gleeson's performance is magnificent; sharp, compassionate, bemused, never not intellectually active.  McDonagh's dialogue is similarly never not sharp.  As the picture progresses, Father James' parishioners morph from a group of perverse individuals to one of intransigently spiteful lunatics.  This is the kind of movie that galvanizes and discomfits while it's on screen, and is terrific fodder for conversation long after its credits roll."

We will be meeting Thursday, March 15th at 6:15 pm.  Hope you're able to make it out to this remarkable and interesting film!

Here's the trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGM5rq_vX4U