W imie...

This is a very effective, very positive and yet oddly disturbing movie about the fitful coming out of a 40ish gay priest in Poland. His name is Adam, and he looks nothing like a priest except while on duty. He's always known he's gay, but he's serious about his vocation and has stayed closeted in order to keep his vows of celibacy.

He has a special gift for helping troubled teenage boys, which his superiors value greatly. His homosexuality has never led to anything remotely inappropriate with a boy (or with a man, for that matter), but he is periodically transferred in order to keep even rumors from interfering with his very valuable ministry. Most recently he was moved from Warsaw to an isolated rural parish with a small work-home for boys on furlough from reformatories.

This is a complex movie, and trying to summarize its plot would be a disservice. It is not predictable, not typical of gay movies, of priest movies, or of any other sort of movies I can think of. It's not the story of a type of man but of THIS man. So, like any real human being, Adam is more complicated than a normal movie character, and the director does not try to make him easy to understand.

In part because it's NOT predictable, this movie is fascinating to watch, and the end is especially satisfying. The movie is disturbing not because of anything that happens, but because everyone and everything in it looks dirty.

I know that sounds superficial, but sometimes the most superficial things in life are the most distressing. Even after bathing, the characters look grimy, everything indoors is dingy, and outdoors is nothing but dust. I don't know if rural Poland really is as miserable as this movie makes it appear, or if the director was intentionally creating a disturbing ambiance for the movie.

Although it's disturbing, that ambiance adds to the complexity of the movie and enhances its effectiveness. I watched it twice; it was richer and even more satisfying the second time.

I think I've picked this film to watch several years apart. I found it very heart felt and interesting. A priest struggling with his sexuality. Boys struggling with theirs.

Great acting The scenes are done nicely Camera is just above average Sounds are nicely done The story is well told, like the script above average quality Clearly see the conflict between someone that is raised in the big city and going to a more outskirt place.

A movie about community, getting respect and ranks Importance of the community what is being valued and therefore feared and will listen As he forfill a duty with the community and hold his norms and value all the time, especially in public.

Still, he is a human and need to know how to fit in the community and interact with them to keep his position and respect.

He got tested so many times and almost all the time it is hard to keep it straight and having the right answer for it. Everybody is looking at him as a release, escape and know it all, but he is none to release his. Makes it unbearable Especially the new guy challenge him, the difficulty is that the new guy got good integrated.

When looking for help he notices he was always for the people he needed to be but when he needed help from those, he should be able to rely on he did not get anything.

Very well done on meeting the higher supervisor, as it feels like how the church is running a company and do not want to lose someone over a small incident that could help them to make much.

The end is just a closure, where the one ends and the other begins.

Would like to have more clarity and more action, so it is more pleasant to watch even if it is not really bored, but it is just relaxing.

Andrej Chyra (Father Adam), Mateusz Koskiukiewicz (the tongue-tied Lukasz) and Tomas Schuchard (the streetwise Blondie)are superb. But this is writer/director Malgorzata Szumowski's film and it is original, fresh. It proves once again the power of art to make sympathetic a character you wouldn't have believed was worthy of consideration based on the facts alone. I mean the conscience-tormented Father Adam who is enveloped in a haze of homoeroticism generated by the late-teenage youths at a Polish reformatory camp. Given the emotional and affectional undernourishment among both the adults and the youths it is unsurprising that desire emerges here and there. But Father Adam is no predator pedophile exploiting altar boys. He is a sincere man devoted to the well-being of his wards and his temptations come in the form of youths past the age of consent played by actors well-past that age.

This well-acted, carefully directed Polish film is the story of Adam, a priest in a small rural town trying to repress his homosexuality as he helps a group of troubled teens to find their footing again. Adam has a good heart and is mostly disciplined, represented by his running which he refers to as "a prayer." Without every directly saying so, the film is an indictment of the celibacy thrust on anyone wanting to become a Catholic priest--and the cost of that celibacy--but more than this it is a film about needing love and, even more so, FEELING love that can't be expressed or pursued in a relentlessly homophobic environment. Adam's intermittent alcoholism reflects the cost of self-denial: his entire life seems like self-abnegation to try to squelch his desires--a hopeless and costly endeavor.

While Andrzej Chyra is excellent as Adam, it is Mateusz Kosciukiewicz as Lukasz who is a revelation here. Kosciukiewicz plays Lukasz as troubled and sensitive, taciturn and prone to outbursts--and we can readily understand why Adam is so drawn to him. It's a brilliant performance by Kosciukiewicz, layered and touching, one worth the whole price of admission.

If there are flaws in this film, they are directorial choices. There are too many scenes of the boys being violent and abusive; we got the picture the first time or two. When we finally get to the passion we know is in Adam and Lukasz, the camera is simply moving around too much, the scene too obfuscated in dim lighting. We need to feel these moments. Also, I'm going to guess that both actors are probably straight in real life. As talented as they both are, they never actually kiss in that scene: there would be very passionate kissing. Maybe they should have watched Brokeback Mountain to see how two 'straight' actors simply threw themselves into their scenes of passion.

We're left with certain questions at the end of In the Name Of--and that's fine--but the final scene is truly perplexing. Worth the watch. In many ways, a beuatiful film but not an easy one.