The Good Catholic

Enjoyed the development of the relationship between faith and love in a story with interesting, well developed characters. Funny and sad issues that adults can relate to presented in a compelling and entertaining story. Well worth seeing with friends and discussing after. The filming and photography struck me as excellent. Set in small town America, the story presents challenges and moral issues faced by everyone.

I read a lot about this movie and since I'm a Catholic I looked up information about this movie from Catholic websites I could trust. I'm not sure what kind of light this shows Catholics in, especially the monk who smokes and seems to not care about the fact that this priest might be breaking his vow of chastity. Yes, I understand that priests are human and temptations are real. But I think it's important to point out that not all Catholic priests act this way. In fact, when a priest breaks his vow, its a very big deal. It sounds like a funny, romantic movie but its good to keep in mind, especially if you don't know much about Catholics, that this is not 100% accurate.

I was lucky enough to see this film and thoroughly enjoyed it! I knew some of the basic story line, but found that I was still glued to the screen as the movie progressed. I was pulled in by the actors and felt their emotions and points of stress! It was fascinating watching how the story grew and changed and how the characters dealt with it all. I work in a church and could relate to the well-acted subtleties of having "church" in the mix!

The movie has some really funny parts and very serious and tense parts. This is the kind of movie that sparks conversation. Please don't miss it!

Movies reflect the values of the people who make them. Most of those people are Liberal or even Leftist. So you get thousands of movies per year with a Liberal or Leftist perspective. One of those perspectives is that religion sucks.

Whenever I see Danny Glover listed in the cast of anything other than Lethal Weapon, I expect some kind of touchy-feely message.

Yet I would not consider this film anti-Catholic. Our main character is very earnest in wanting to serve both God and his congregation. He just struggles with his faith, like many people.

The three-man staff of the parish is meant to represent different potential versions of priests. One is old and conservative, one is old and a bit cynical and silly, but still committed, and one is young and confused.

To their credit the film makers did not make the old conservative one out to be a bad guy. No one molests children or does immoral things.

But what disturbed me was that the spoiled, cynical slacker-woman character is portrayed as the righteous one who teaches life lessons to the out-of-touch clergy. Yet her life is a mess. That part is typical Indie glorification of melancholia.

While the dialog hinted at profundity, it never quite gets there. The Glover character does challenge the silly woman, but he is made out to look rude, while she's the hipster.

Someone should have told the main young character to loosen up, instead of just implying it. Meanwhile someone should have told the woman that trendy self-pity and dishonesty are not becoming.

The Midwest college town setting and slow pace are refreshing compared to the typical L.A., New York, Chicago, Miami redundancy. But pregnant pauses and focused shots of a contemplative face do not create depth. The dialog still has to do its job.

I grew up in a place and time when "The Thorn Birds" (1983 mini-series adaptation of a novel about a Catholic priest's forbidden love) was so hugely popular that, for at least a decade afterwards, references to and re-makes/adaptations of this premise kept popping up without losing the audience's attention. I mean, as far as "forbidden love" goes, this kind of premise is extremely advantageous: there's high stakes, there's tension, there's existential angst and crisis of faith, moral dilemmas and heartbreak...

You'd think it almost can't go wrong

But apparently it can, and it did in this film, which is SO bland and uninspired it's painful to watch.

The young (uber-hunk) priest is struggling with grief and a general lack of faith, but only in words. He repeats "I'm struggling with grief and a general lack of faith" several times throughout the film, but he totally fails to convince, despite the tears, because there isn't a story to back this up.

The woman (=love interest) character is totally random. She's apparently obsessed with death because life seems meaningless otherwise, but we don't find out anything about her that would turn her into a three-dimensional character. She's just quirky for the sake of being quirky. Everything she says (because this film is all about what people say, they don't really do much) amounts to "I'm so quirky, look at me, I'm so occasionally depressed and obsessed with death!"

And then there's the two supporting priest characters whose role and (lack of) depth can also be summed up in one-liners: there's the "I'm proper and wise and old-fashioned" and the "I'm quirky and rebellious and clearly here for comic relief, while also demonstrating that faith isn't necessarily about following all the rules or taking yourself too seriously".

Yeh so that's it. What I wrote above is the whole film. I swear there's absolutely nothing else in it. Every scene seems pointless because it just goes through the motions of its generic tag: "the crisis of faith scene", "the boy-meets-girl scene", "the break-up scene" oh and the should-have-been-powerful-but-ended-up-complete-nonsense "awkward dinner scene".

Don't waste your time. If the premise appeals to you so much go watch The Thorn Birds.