Is Calvary one of the greatest films to come out of Ireland? Maybe. John Michael McDonagh is certainly one of the country's greatest directors, as is his brother Martin McDonagh. Talk about a talented family. Both made astonishing feature film debuts with The Guard and In Bruges respectively - the former an exceptionally funny and lively hybrid of violent crime drama and domestic British comedy, the latter an equally amusing but much darker tale of redemption (with a blisteringly good performance from Colin Farrell). Yet while Martin McDonagh went to Hollywood to write and direct the disappointing Seven Psychopaths, John Michael McDonagh has stuck around with Calvary, set in his native Ireland and concerned with issues much closer to home.
The shocking opening scene sets the tone of the piece. Brendan Gleeson's priest, Father James Lavelle, listens to a man in a confessional booth, who describes how he was abused by a priest at a young age ("I first tasted semen when I was seven years old") and that in seven days he will kill him despite, or perhaps because, he is a good man. Lavelle thinks he recognises the man but refuses to go to the police, instead going about his daily duties of attending to members of his flock. We see a glimpse into the priest's life as the days count down, and his experiences with the characters of the local village prompt him to grapple with his own mortality.
It's a beautifully made film, with the sweeping shots of the tumultuous coast contrasted with Patrick Cassidy's haunting orchestral compositions. But it's the performances which really make this film work. English actress Kelly Reilly excels as Gleeson's troubled daughter struggling with depression, and Chris O'Dowd doesn't get nearly enough screen time as a potential wife-beater, sure to obliterate everyone's perceptions of the actor as "that guy from The I.T. Crowd". In fact, the only actor I had a problem with was a scenery-chewing Aiden Gillen, essentially playing his Game of Thrones character with an Irish accent. Yet ultimately it's Brendan Gleeson's show; without him the (often stage-like) film would not work since he ties together the loosely connected characters with a towering performance, full of gravitas and sincerity. He's not the archetypal "good priest", he's a man struggling with his demons (he used to be an alcoholic and bar-brawler) who uses faith to find meaning and redemption in the later years of his life.
It's an old-fashioned set of values which he embodies, an image of the church which has become tarnished after years of scandal. McDonagh presents quite an ugly picture of Ireland, where all the locals regard the church with their own brand of hostility and violence can - and does - erupt frequently. And Calvary is a deeply angry film, angry with those who committed atrocities and angry with those who looked away, and the society born out of this tragedy is forever affected by what happened. All this builds to a tremendously powerful final fifteen minutes which, frankly, left me speechless. The greatest film to come out of Ireland? Probably not, if Jim Sheridan has anything to say about it, but it definitely comes close.
