We are not fully aware of how lucky we are to have people like the McDonagh brothers making movies and leaving aside the theater where they trained and made a reputation. A biting reputation. Both Martin McDonagh and John Michael McDonagh have signed several of the best films of the last fifteen years, so charged with caustic and bastard humor as with fascinating human reflections.
The first has undoubtedly more impact, thanks to the brilliant ‘Hide in Bruges’ and ‘Three billboards outside’ that -especially the latter- have received academic attention. But the second has shown so much talent to make very twisted dramas, although they go unnoticed like his recently released ‘The Forgiven’. But things like ‘Calvary’ shouldn’t go unnoticed, they should be streamed on platforms like Disney+ and discovered for the gems they are.
death on sunday
Brendan Gleeson stars in the film playing a modest Irish town priest. Father James is one of those “good priests” who has a cordial relationship with his community of parishioners and neighbors, even if they are not necessarily so friendly with each other. He also has a complex relationship with his daughter (Kelly Reilly) after a rather imperfect upbringing. In both cases he is left with resentment of being able to do something else.
Suddenly in what seems like one more morning confession, something unexpected happens. “The first time I tasted semen was when I was 7 years old,” says the mysterious man who has come to the confession booth, to reveal that he was repeatedly abused by a priest when he was young. He is not Father James, but he bears such a deep grudge against the church representatives that he does not care. For this reason he threatens to assassinate him next Sunday. What a day.
This fact will trigger some self-reflection on the part of Father James, trying to put his affairs in order and even think more about the divine and the human. And during the process will more often come across the absurdity of existence, of rage and despair and how people try to make sense of everything in different ways. McDonagh manages to make everything coexist organically in a perfectly measured tone.
‘Calvary’: desperation and absurdity
The playwright began to devise this story of the “good priest” in the middle of filming ‘The Irishman’, also with Gleeson at the helm, which was the reason for starting to write the script. That is why the character suits him so well, like a good cassock that fits a preacher like a glove, and is capable of holding the particular game as black as contemplative that McDonagh intends with the movie.
‘Calvary’ talks about coincidences and people without goals in life who end up finding meaning, in a way that rhymes with his brother’s excellent ‘Three billboards outside’. Drama of the highest level, as funny as it is sharp, that tries to make sense of the dark feelings that we sometimes feel. Cinema is also this, people talking in a meadow next to the cliff and seeing how existence just doesn’t make as much sense as we think.