I am trying hard to think why this film fails to be a great film, at least in my eyes. It seems to have the qualifications. It has a great cast, a powerful story, good direction and good pacing, and yet I feel strangely unenthusiastic about it. I am still unconvinced why it failed to make me like it more. I have only just watched it (half an hour ago) so maybe I am writing this review a little to soon to really guess at the answer to the above.
Perhaps its the lack of subtlety in the film, which puts me off engaging with the characters. Maybe it is the strange lack of menace I had about the priest's (Brendan Gleeson) ultimate and very bloody fate. The acting by the way is fine throughout from most of the participants, except for a couple of the peripheal characters, which I found rather too quirky.
Kelly Reilly however is very good as the priest's daughter, recovering from a suicide attempt; attempting to reconnect with her father. Chris O'Down is excellent at priest's unwarranted nemesis. Dylan Moran is good as he can be as an unsubtle and unsympathetic wealthy landowner.
The beginning of the film does deliberately shock, where in confession an unseen and until the end unknown antagonist Chris O'Dowd, gives incredibly graphic detail about the sexual abuse he received, to the priest. I think this shocking start perhaps unbalances the film, and although the film does very well to live up to that start, it perhaps tries to hard throughout to keep that level of shock up.
The ending however is genuinely gruesome, and deliberately provocative. I think it is there to try and make us reflect as society on the' indifference' people might have had to sexual abuse. The film overall also seems to make a point about how cynicism, greed and indifference allowed child abuse, by some of the priesthood in Ireland, to happen unhindered.
I did find the ending moving especially when the daughter of the priest visits Chris O'Dowd in prison, presumably to accept his forgiveness. I do wish I liked this film more. It is brave, it is ambitious, and there is a who's who of Irish acting talent on display. Perhaps this film is just too pessimistic even allowing for the dark subject matter. You either have to like the characters, or its overall message, when a film is bleak in outlook. There are some lighter moments in the film especially with a fellow and incompetent priest, but there isn't much of it to go around in this film. Mind you the countryside is spectacularly brooding and beautiful. It is only a small compensation though to a well made but unfullfilling film.
Perhaps its the lack of subtlety in the film, which puts me off engaging with the characters. Maybe it is the strange lack of menace I had about the priest's (Brendan Gleeson) ultimate and very bloody fate. The acting by the way is fine throughout from most of the participants, except for a couple of the peripheal characters, which I found rather too quirky.
Kelly Reilly however is very good as the priest's daughter, recovering from a suicide attempt; attempting to reconnect with her father. Chris O'Down is excellent at priest's unwarranted nemesis. Dylan Moran is good as he can be as an unsubtle and unsympathetic wealthy landowner.
The beginning of the film does deliberately shock, where in confession an unseen and until the end unknown antagonist Chris O'Dowd, gives incredibly graphic detail about the sexual abuse he received, to the priest. I think this shocking start perhaps unbalances the film, and although the film does very well to live up to that start, it perhaps tries to hard throughout to keep that level of shock up.
The ending however is genuinely gruesome, and deliberately provocative. I think it is there to try and make us reflect as society on the' indifference' people might have had to sexual abuse. The film overall also seems to make a point about how cynicism, greed and indifference allowed child abuse, by some of the priesthood in Ireland, to happen unhindered.
I did find the ending moving especially when the daughter of the priest visits Chris O'Dowd in prison, presumably to accept his forgiveness. I do wish I liked this film more. It is brave, it is ambitious, and there is a who's who of Irish acting talent on display. Perhaps this film is just too pessimistic even allowing for the dark subject matter. You either have to like the characters, or its overall message, when a film is bleak in outlook. There are some lighter moments in the film especially with a fellow and incompetent priest, but there isn't much of it to go around in this film. Mind you the countryside is spectacularly brooding and beautiful. It is only a small compensation though to a well made but unfullfilling film.