Calvary
Dir: John Michael McDonagh
2014
*****
John Michael McDonagh's 2014 Calvary is a dark, bleak but very funny look at old beliefs vs. modern thinking. The mood is bitter, financial crisis and scandal has made society bitter and in McDonagh's astonishing film, faith is the first causality. Brendan Gleeson plays a very different kind of priest and his clergy are certainly not the Irish archetype. I don't think McDonagh is reversing tables in any way, if anything he is showing a very real shift in awareness and public thinking but more over, he is exploring the different aspects of all society and actually how everything is flawed in its own unique way. It's commented on that if faith is so easily lost, there can't have been much there to begun with. This and other meditations and philosophical discussions make for fascinating viewing. It is interesting that it is Gleeson's Father James alone that understands that some things just happen and not everything has reason, it just is. This might sound like the film is about contradiction but it isn't and it also is. The character demographic is impressive as is the cast. Chris O'Dowd, Dylan Moran, M. Emmet Walsh, Aiden Gillen (in his best role yet), Pat Shortt, David Wilmot, Isaach De Benkole and Orla O'Rourke are a supporting cast to die for, each one giving impressive performances of real drama and golden comedy. The script is utterly brilliant, with some of the best lines I've ever heard in a film ever and whether it's delivered with lovely Irish sarcasm or with a sex fueled 1940's wiseguy accent, it is always perfect. The conclusion is unpredictable and shocking and all the better for it. One of the best films of 2014.