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An Exercise In Nonsense

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Father Greg Pilkington (Linus Roache) is torn between his call as a conservative Catholic priest and his secret life as a homosexual with a gay lover, frowned upon by the Church.I did not know what I was getting into watching this, but found that it was above and beyond anything I could have expected. One could look at it from a shallow point of view and see it as an attack on the Church, but it is not that at all. And it could be seen as a film about homosexuality. Which it is, but that is not the point either.This is about life's contradictions, about the rules we all have to follow, and about when the rules do not always make sense. We see how the "vow of silence" destroys a man, a family and so much more... how can it be acceptable?

I remember this film when it first came out in 1994. Much was made by the media about it, particularly because there was the feeling that this film was an attack on the Catholic Church. In the intervening two decades we have read with dismay the sexual abuse by priests of young boys, our awareness of sexual predators of young children of both sexes and other abuses (such as the scandal of young girls being incarcerated in laundries all over Great Britain and the U.S. as indentured servants throughout their teens), that the Church hierarchy swept under the rug. This film explores some of the issues that have caused the church to experience much embarrassment, but little change. This is a well-acted, film with crisp direction, a strong script and I suspect a sense of moral outrage. Tom Wilkinson and Linus Roach are both outstanding. Wilkinson's liberal views of his church are pragmatic. His young house-mate is a smug and rigidly conforming young priest named Father Greg Pilkington who has hardly been buffeted by the realities of adulthood. He's so busy being holier-than-thou, he cannot really see his own hypocrisy. He meets another young man in a gay bar and has a fling with him, but cannot face the fact that he's a young man in search of some romantic connection. And when the young man comes to take communion at his church, Father Greg humiliates him by refusing to give him communion. His biggest challenge comes when one of his young parishioner confesses to him that her father has sexually abused her. The Church's sanctity about the privacy of confession is enough to make you condemn the Church for it's insanely strict rules. Father Greg pays for his rigidity when the girl's mother confronts him at church. He has a complete breakdown at that point. It is well deserved. The Church's authority has now exceeded its humanity. Tom Wilkinson, well on his way to the kind of regular movie stardom that has been conferred on to other excellent character actors such as Eli Wallach, Karl Malden, and more recently, Allison Janney and John Goodman,is his usual outstanding self as the liberal Father Matthew. He's in a serious but secret relationship with his housekeeper (the excellent Cathy Tyson who is given far little to do), enjoys his drink and holds liberal views that don't always sit well with the parishioners. It sometimes feels if the deck is too stacked against the church. Only the most devout will see the Church as innocents here, and in fact, the entire institution deserves the drubbing it receives here. There's a new Pope in Rome, whom many feel and hope will be a force of change to bring the Church to a more modern and compassionate level in our increasingly turbulent times. THE PRIEST can be enjoyed on many levels--as an entertaining film with a charismatic actor at its center, a polemic of the modern day Catholic Church or even a modern warning to the perils of our modern age. It holds up very well in this the twentieth year since its release.

Father Greg Pilkington is a young Roman Catholic priest who is assigned to a tough working-class parish in inner-city Liverpool, where he acts as assistant to the existing parish priest Father Matthew Thomas. The two men are very different. Father Pilkington is a theological and political conservative; his first sermon is effectively a paraphrase of Margaret Thatcher's famous "no such thing as society" speech. The considerably older Father Thomas is politically a left-wing radical and a theological liberal; Father Pilkington is shocked to discover that he is engaged in a long-standing sexual relationship with his housekeeper Maria.The younger man, however, also has his own struggles with his sexuality, as he is secretly a homosexual. He meets another man, Graham, at a local gay nightclub and the two begin a physical relationship. Father Pilkington's faith is further tested when a teenage schoolgirl confides to him in the confessional that she is being sexually abused by her father. Because of the traditional Catholic doctrine of the "seal of the confessional", he is unable to notify the authorities, even though he is sorely tempted to do so."Priest" was one of the most controversial British films of the 1990s because of the way in which it dealt with the issues of homosexuality, incest, child abuse and religious celibacy. As might be expected, it was particularly controversial in Catholic circles, and there have been numerous allegations, both on this board and elsewhere, that it is "anti-Catholic". Critic Roger Ebert, although he is no longer a practising Catholic, was particularly scathing, saying that "For this movie to be described as a moral statement about anything other than the filmmaker's prejudices is beyond belief." This is not a view with which I would agree. "Priest" is a dramatic exploration of various moral issues raised by Catholic theology, not an anti-Catholic diatribe. It is clearly not anti-Catholic in the sense of "Protestantism good, Catholicism bad". Nor in the sense of "Atheism good, Religion bad, Catholicism particularly so". Both the protagonists Father Pilkington and Father Thomas are men who, despite their disagreements with the Church authorities, find (in different ways) that Christian teachings give meaning to their lives as a source of values. Both (although they are tempted to leave the priesthood) remain loyal to the Church as an institution, believing that it is through the Church that they can best serve God. That doesn't seem to me to be either anti-Christian or anti-Catholic.At times it appears as though the scriptwriter Jimmy McGovern is arguing against traditionalist religion and in favour of a more inclusive Catholicism which accepts married priests, takes a more liberal line on homosexuality and focuses more on social issues than questions of sexual morality. Yet even this would be an oversimplification of the film's position. When Father Pilkington is finally exposed as gay, he is the target of severe criticism from his bishop, from several members of his congregation and from an elderly priest who tells him in Latin that he is a pustule on the body of Christ. (Greg's response is to tell him, also in Latin, "Go **** yourself, you dirty old man"). Yet his severest critic is himself. He sees his homosexual nature as something sinful, as a temptation that his is too weak to resist.Both Father Pilkington and Father Thomas can, in different ways, be seen as hypocritical. Yet Greg at least sees his hypocrisy for what it is. He realises that his priesthood gives him a position of spiritual authority within the Catholic Church and widespread respect outside it. He is therefore bound in all honesty to try to fulfil the responsibilities which go with that position, including the responsibility to abide by his vow of celibacy. Father Thomas, by contrast, is not self-critical enough to realise how hypocritical he is being. One of his favourite quotes from the Bible is "Judge not, lest ye be judged". He interprets this, however, as a sort of bargain with God, hoping that if he takes a laissez-faire attitude to other people's sex-lives then God will turn a blind eye to his own blatant violation of his vow of celibacy. Father Thomas's principle of non-judgementalism does not, it should be noted, extend beyond the field of sexual ethics. In political matters he can be very judgemental indeed; in one sermon he accuses those who do not share his socialist world-view of "spitting in the face of God".This was Antonia Bird's first feature film, and I was very impressed by it. She manages the difficult task of making complex religious issues seem both interesting and relevant in the cinema, but "Priest" is much more than a filmed theological debate. It is also a powerful psychological drama, with excellent performances from the two leading actors, Linus Roache and Tom Wilkinson, and an important contribution to the distinguished British tradition of social-realist film-making. Unlike some, I did not see it as a prejudiced attack on the Church. Rather, it is an exploration of a number of important issues which the Church needs to confront. That need is perhaps even more urgent in 2010 than it was in 1994. 8/10

Priest was an interesting movie. When I read about it in Down and Dirty Pictures I expected it to be a tasteless assault upon the Christian religion, but to my surprise it wasn't, and not only was it not tasteless it turned out to be a pretty good film. I felt like it treated its subject matter fairly delicately given that it was an independent film and it was a Miramax production. I thought that this was an excellent movie about a priest who is doubting his own profession and the fact that God was even real. Honestly I thought that his relationship with the girl who was being molested by her father was more interesting than the fact that he was gay. At first I even thought that him being gay was overkill and the movie would have been better if it were just about his relationship to the girl, but by the time the ending rolled around I realized that it was necessary for him to be gay for this movie to work. If it were not for that touching scene in which she is the only person to receive the sacraments from him I would say that his being gay was totally inconsequential to the movie. But those very few moments absolutely make this movie. But now that I have discussed the "gay" factor I would like to concentrate on some of the movie's other strong points. This film was truly hilarious. The gay priest's relationship with his fellow straight priest was another high point in the film. Their conversations about, "What does God care about what a man does with his dick?" Were particularly funny and the scene in which the older man they are staying with chaperones them is just hysterical. There are two other scenes that stick out in my mind about this movie. The first being when the molesting father is in the confessional and you only get to see his face, that man was simply terrifying. He seemed to be so evil in that one scene, he really nailed the part. The second scene that I thought was particularly powerful was when the gay priest was praying and telling Jesus that he had it so easy because He knew everything and basically yelling at God for being God—if that makes any sense—God was answering his prayer by exposing the girl's father as a molester. Overall Priest is a superb movie and it is rather unfortunate that some people will avoid this film simply because of its premise.