Review: Calvary

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Father James Lavelle (Brendan Gleeson) presides as the local priest at a small Catholic church in a small, picturesque Irish city by the sea. With high, green rolling hills and narrow, cobble stone roads leading down to the water and through the town, it looks like something out of a poem or travel guide for visiting the green isle. The idea of Lavelle's character and role in the town sounds like something even more poetic, but the reality of his mission and life is far less romantic and much more tiresome than one would think. For he is surrounded by a motley crew of parishioners and citizens, none of whom seem to show any actual interest in the church or faith. In fact, there seems to be a general feeling of resentment towards the Catholic church even though Lavelle insists time and again that he does not pretend to speak for or represent the entire church.

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However, in the very first scene, Lavelle is taking confession from a man who's voice we hear but cannot see. The man claims to have been abused by a priest as a young boy and says it does no good to kill a "bad priest," but what no one would expect or what people might pay attention to is if someone killed a "good priest." Thus, the man tells Lavelle to meet him on the beach the following Sunday and he'd kill him there. Instead of panicking or fleeing town immediately, Lavelle is surprisingly calm. He even tells his bishop that he thinks he knows who the man is. Yet, he remains and goes through his week where we're introduced to different members of the "motley crew" I mentioned before. An unfaithful, crude wife (Orla O'Rourke), her indifferent, prick husband (Chris O'Dowd), one of her lovers (Isaac De Bankole), a semi-suicidal, quirky young man (Killian Scott), an atheistic, coke-snorting doctor (Aiden Gillen), an alcoholic, depressed rich man (Dylan Moran), a reckless, male prostitute (Owen Sharpe), a serial killer, cannibal (Domhnall Gleeson), and Lavelle's fellow, half-hearted priest-in-training (David Wilmot). During each day of the week leading up to Sunday, Lavelle interacts with all of these characters and their menagerie of issues. As troubled as many if not all of them clearly are none seem to want help or advice from Lavelle. Many in fact treat him very poorly when he has shown them no hostility or judgment.

But as we saw from the very first scene, Lavelle does not react strongly or hastily. He no doubt has reservations and opinions which he honestly shares with others, but his first act is to internalize, to think, to ponder. As we see when he is taking confession from his own daughter, he says "the choices you make when you're 30 are not the same choices you make when you're 60" to which she responds "that's irrelevant; every moment of living has its own logic, its own meaning," and to this Lavelle says "maybe so. Maybe you're right there, I'll have to think about that." And he's honest when he says he'd think about it. We see the same attitude again and again during very different conversations with all the characters.

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Coming from a religious background myself, I appreciated this kind of honest, thoughtfulness about Lavelle more than anything. In the kind of Christianity I was raised in we basically trained ourselves to try and have an immediate answer to any non-believers we may end up in debate with some day. For some reason, we were obsessed with being able to defend (or go on the offensive if need be) our morals and beliefs, and the attitude of many church leaders I witnessed was one of great certainty and eagerness to share their beliefs with others. Now, I am in favor of a character like Lavelle's. The director (John Michael McDonagh) and casting director did a great job when they chose Gleeson to play the role because of his hulking, intimidating stature. It's no accident that Gleeson also played Hamish, William Wallace's giant, ax wielding friend nearly 20 years ago in Braveheart. Lavelle could easily be domineering because of his appearance and it would probably work, but as it stands he is just about the least threatening and quarrelsome person we meet. That's not to say he isn't perfect or without problems though. We learn that he has a past of alcoholism, his wife died, and his daughter, Fiona (Kelly Reilly), tried to commit suicide. His alcoholism and decision to join the clergy after the death of his wife created a rift in his relationship with his daughter as well, so he is definitely not without fault. But still, a number of different characters remark that no one around here has anything bad to say about him.

Why then would someone want to kill Lavelle? Besides the obvious point of revenge for the unseen man against the Catholic church there's a deeper message. One involving mercy and forgiveness. Before the first scene in the confessional, there's a quotation against the dark screen: "Do not despair; one of the thieves was saved. Do not presume; one of the thieves was damned." This quote is in reference to the Bible when Jesus is crucified on the cross along with two other criminals. One of the "thieves" hurls insults at Jesus while the other asks to be remembered. Jesus tells this thief that he'd be with him in paradise (aka heaven) that same day. Naturally, one assumes that the other thief who insulted Jesus was not going to be let into heaven, but as Lavelle says in the confessional with his daughter "the limits of his [God's] mercy have not been set." And again, towards the end, he says to his daughter "I think there's too much talk about sins, to be honest, and not enough talk about virtues...I think forgiveness has been highly underrated." 

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What's important to realize amidst what seems to be a highly religious character and setting is that talk of faith and God's will or whatever is fairly absent. What becomes clear is a focus on the past and present wrongs of the characters and the wrongs done against them. In each case there is obvious hurt and attempts at compensation. As the rich alcoholic puts it, "I guess there is only "past sins"...if there weren't I guess there'd only be...thoughts of sin." In the end, there begins to be a distinction between the sin and the sinner. Sort of like the old Ghandi saying "hate the sin, not the sinner," but it's more complicated than that. Obviously, each person is responsible for their actions and are irrevocably tied to them because they had the capacity to act or not. Yet, each person has their own history. Just as we know nothing about the history of the thief on the cross who insulted Jesus and what made him do so, we should not be so quick to condemn him for that single moment. This kind of logic becomes the opposite of the man who threatens Lavelle's life at the beginning. He blames all priests for the great hurt and abuse he experienced even though Lavelle is essentially the epitome of a "good" priest. Is it right to blame all servants of the Catholic church for such atrocities? In the same way, is it right to condemn a person for a single act or even the whole of their actions? In regards to God, I would side with Lavelle and say the limits of God's mercy have not been set.

Still, this does not explain away the injustices of life, and Calvary makes that clear as well. What began as a seemingly simple film slowly escalated into an extremely thoughtful piece of cinema. Gleeson's reserved but passionate performance is phenomenal and the rest of the cast is fantastic as well. Next to that and the fabulous script by McDonagh, the soundtrack is expertly pointed and intentional with deep, moving tones that perfectly fit the Irish setting. I wish I could discuss the ending and the further ideas it provides, but I'll leave that spoiler alone for your own viewership. Just know that this is a very big film and experience wrapped up in a very humble film.