Un pasatiempo celestial

The city of Glasgow's a pretty rum setting for this typically twee eighties comedy in drab colours and with an already dated synthesiser score by B. A. Robertson. Usually it takes a blow on the head but Tom Conti is here endowed with miraculous powers as the result of a bad reaction to an anesthetic following a dental examination.

I particularly liked the trick with the traffic lights, but biggest miracle that enters his life has to be The Blessed Helen at her most charmingly unafffected. Both leads look somewhat out of place as teachers in a Glaswegian Catholic school, but the film is a fantasy after all.

This Scottish comedy-drama is one which is pretty obscure nowadays and I can't say I even recall it from back in the day. It seems to have been coming from the same general ballpark as the Bill Forsyth blend of gentle, quirky comedies which were very popular back in the 80's. The story centres on a non-believing teacher at a Glasgow Catholic school which is on the lookout for two more verifiable miracles required in order to promote the woman who the school is named after - Edith Semple - to sainthood; some seemingly miraculous events follow, complicated by the fact they all seem to involve the atheist teacher.

Unlike the Forsyth films, this one does seem to lack the strong characterisation and funny moments; unfortunately, like the Forsyth films it also has an awful soundtrack and a complete absence of any cinematic style whatsoever, with all events taking place in a world of beige. But despite all this, its still a decent enough watch, at least to a certain extent. The cast and regional location are probably the best things about it, with mid 80's Glasgow making for an intriguing backdrop, while Tom Conti is a good enough lead, with reliable players such as Helen Mirren and David Hayman helping out with the heavy lifting. It was also quite a surprise to see a teenage Ewen Bremner pitch up as a sort of Scottish Rain Man and it was even better to enjoy the sorely missed Jenny McCrindle appear in her first role as one of Conti's pupils. On the whole, probably worth seeing this more for the cast and location than the fairly uninteresting story. A likeable Scottish obscurity, whatever the case.

I was pleased to track down this lesser-known Film 4 production from the mid-80's, set in my native Glasgow. It's very much post-Bill Forsyth with its everyday locations and quirky characters even if it posits at its heart the old religious faith v atheistic scepticism argument although as you'd expect, it doesn't do so in a deadly serious way.

Events centre around a Catholic school in Glasgow for struggling girls and boys, the Blessed Edith Semple School, which is trying to claim sainthood for its namesake and founder for publicity and no doubt fund-raising purposes. To do this there must be three verifiable miracles which can be accredited to her influence and they're off to a flying, or should that be walking start, when one of their crippled young students gets up and does just that. So the search for numbers two and three is definitely afoot, although Tom Conti's teacherly cynic-in-residence character, Vic Matthews, doesn't believe any of it. He has his own problems anyway as he's just discovered he's suffering from an incurable brain tumour.

An intuitive and sympathetic teacher, he takes his class with a mixture of humour and empathy but can't get through to one young boy in particular who's perennially at the bottom of the class and seems uncommunicative, even to him, Ewan Bremner in his debut role as Stevie Deans. So he makes it his personal mission to try help the youngster out, especially as the school's rather severe headmaster, David Anderson, wants to pack Stevie off to a special school.

Also into Vic's orbit comes the pretty new female music teacher, Ruth Chancellor, a young Helen Mirren whom he initially awkwardly tries to woo. Then strange things start happening to him, he runs a bazillion red lights unscathed n his car to prove a point to his passenger Ruth and his stereo plays without being plugged-in culminating in an incredible physical feat of his, when he makes like Spiderman to try to talk down another youngster who's got up on the school roof in an attention seeking manoeuvre of their own. Naturally, it's not long before this story flies with the media with Vic as the reluctant focal point. But the biggest unexplained occurrence is just around the corner...

As I expected, the humour here is gentle and warm. The film doesn't try to lead the viewer to any favoured conclusions leaving the subject of whether or not to believe, down to the audience themselves. Anyway, Vic's much more interested in the welfare of his pupils as well as his stop-start courting of the initially resistant Ruth, than whether the school gets recognition from the Vatican.

It has to to be said that the acting of the child actors is occasionally rather amateurish and it's also blessed, (no pun intended) with an especially dated pop-synthesiser soundtrack which made me wince with every blast of it. Conti is highly personable as Matthews and is nicely supported by Mirren, Anderson and a young David Hayman as another of his teacher colleagues. It goes without seeing that it was highly pleasurable for me to identify in the location shots, familiar parts of my city as it was when I was younger.

I felt the film could have perhaps benefited with a little more humour and drama, but nevertheless it was a pleasant watch and definitely worth looking up on my part.

A sweet, small-scale movie, rarely shown and only available in a deleted full screen PAL VHS edition at present, this film was screened on Scottish TV on 19 April 2009 in widescreen. It's quite grainy and the sound isn't exactly DTS quality but the story's good and the performances are universally good. It's Conti's film and his acting is almost invisible - I hope that's a compliment - whilst Mirren is an excellent foil to him; their relationship is not uncomplicated and consequently very real. Glasgow is shown in its all its pre "...Miles Better" glory with tower blocks and grime to the fore with a 14 year old Ewen Bremner in a key role as underachiever Stevie Deans. A sad sign of our times is that the innocent and friendly physical contact between teacher and pupil seen in 1986 would no longer be tolerated in 2009. Has Blessed Edith Semple School been granted its longed-for miracles or is Vic simply a great teacher triumphing in difficult circumstances? You decide.

I'm going to begin by saying, this review might be a little biased, since I knew Mr. Gormley, who was gracious enough to offer his time and expertise to young screenwriters, whenever he recognized talent. When I met him (in 2003), I knew I'd heard his name before, but couldn't place how or when. It was only after that first meeting (at a local screen writing group) that I looked up his name on IMDb and realized he'd written one of my favorite movies of the 1980's.

"The Gospel According to Vic" is how I know this film; though, as you can see from the top of the info page, it's mainly known as "Heavenly Prusuits." It's not a big budget, blockbuster film, but it does contain a lot of heart, honesty, and decency. It's a story of miracles and belief -- what constitutes a miracle? What distinguishes a miracle from a happy accident or coincidence? Can you be a man of science and a true believer at the same time? Can miracles happen to non-believers? And just how comfortable are people with the idea of real miracles happening all around them?

I can't really pin down why I like this film so much, beyond the fact that it contains realistically drawn characters who deal with some basic philosophical questions. It's not a big film... not an action film or a broad comedy. It's the kind of movie you could share with your family and have a discussion about it afterward.

Conti and Mirren are brilliant, and even the minor players (like the Doctor and the Priest) are well-acted and fleshed out. Sometimes it's hard to understand the students' dialogue, if you see the film in its original release version (Mr. Gormley told me they'd actually dubbed the film later for the international version, using actors whose accents weren't as thick).

Well worth the effort, if you can track down a copy...