Curtis Edmonds -- blueduck@hsbr.org
I don't think that the rich are necessarily different from you and me, but I think that people in the public eye are. When these people are out in public, they have to play the role, whether it's Handsome Actor or Charming Politician or Beauty Queen, that we've assigned to them. But the role is often a lie, which in turn breeds a curiousity about their private lives. This is why whenever you meet a celebrity, your friends and neighbors want to know, "What's he really like?" This is why the National Enquirer stalks these people as they carry out their private lives. We all want to get a look behind the mask so that we can see if these people are as we expect them to be -- and all too often, we're disappointed.
In a small town, the preacher is in the public eye as well. And just as a short, vain actor can hide behind a likable screen persona, the pulpit can hide all sorts of shortcomings and flaws. And that's the initial burden that Robert Duvall's The Apostle carries. Duval plays a preacher named Sonny who's a bit of a showman, a real "spirit-filled Holy Ghost preaching machine", and immediately we're reminded of the Elmer Gantry-style televangelists we're all familiar with. There's a montage that's supposed to establish Sonny as an evangelist. We see him traveling around the South, holding tent-meting revivals and speaking to conferences. He's wearing flashy clothes and he's more than a bit over-the-top. (There's a creepy bit in this montage where Sonny's addressing a group of African-American men, and they're chanting "Jesus", while doing the Black Power salute.) But even though we see who Sonny is and what he does, we don't know him. We don't learn anything about him from his first appearance on screen, where he stops his car at the scene of an accident to lead two young victims to Jesus. Is he grandstanding? Is he doing this to tell the story to his congregation? Or is he really and truly sincere? What's he really like?
What makes The Apostle great is that we find out.
Sonny finds out that his wife (Farrah Fawcett, who delivers an effective, subdued performace in an unglamorous and thankless role) is having an affair with an assistant minister at his church. It doesn't take too long for Sonny's world to collapse. He loses his wife, his children, his church and his temper. He has a screaming match with God loud enough to wake the neighbors, and vents his holy wrath on the hapless assistant minister -- at his son's Little League game, in front of the whole town. He drives away, pausing just long enough to sink his long white car into a Louisiana bayou -- but is it a sacrifice, the act of a madman, or a means to keep the police from tracking him down and filing assault charges?
The meat of the movie is Sonny's rebaptism and resurrection as "The Apostle E.F.". He shows up in a small Louisiana town, refusing to give any other name, and opens a church. And it's here that we learn about Duvall's character and what sort of man he is when he's not behind the pulpit.
To say more would be to spoil the experience, and this is a movie that should be experienced. This is Robert Duvall's movie -- literally, he wrote, directed, and financed it himself -- he's in almost every frame, and he's garnered a well-earned Oscar nomination for it. He's almost spookily effective as the Apostle. He's got every nuance of the character down, from the rapid-fire Pentecostal pulpit ranting to the sweet way he deals with his congregation. And in the movie's climax, a fire-and-brimstone church service, he's hypnotic enough that he almost draws the audience down the movie theater aisle to the mourner's bench when "Softly and Tenderly" plays during the invitation.
Complimenting Duvall's star turn is an excellent supporting cast. This is one of those movies where the no-name actors upstage the name actors. Miranda Richardson puts her light under a bushel as the Apostle's love interest, and Billy Bob Thornton looks as though he's wandered in from another movie in a brief cameo. But the Apostle's congregation (interracial, and joyfully so) is a wonderful group of people, from the retired black preacher, to the mechanic who lets the Apostle sleep on his couch, to the bickering "sisters", to the radio-station owner who moves from cynicism to spirituality.
The Apostle is a totally absorbing look at a man of faith and his congregation. It's extraordinarily well-written and acted. It takes a position on religion -- especially Southern evangelical religion -- that's honest, and not satirical or overly spiritually maudlin. For any serious communicant of the Church of Movies, The Apostle qualifies as a singular miracle, crafted by the strong hands of Robert Duvall, Patron Saint of the Character Actor. If only the rest of Hollywood would go forth and do likewise.
Rating: A+ -- Curtis "BlueDuck" Edmonds blueduck@hsbr.org
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