Stigmata *1/2
Rated on a 4-star scale Screening venue: Odeon (Liverpool City Centre) Released in the UK by UIP on January 21, 2000; certificate 18; 102 minutes; country of origin USA; aspect ratio 2.35:1
Directed by Rupert Wainwright; produced by Frank Mancuso Jr. Written by Tom Lazarus, Rick Ramage. Photographed by Jeffrey L Kimball; edited by Michael J Duthie, Michael R Miller.
CAST..... Patricia Arquette..... Frankie Paige Gabriel Byrne..... Father Andrew Kiernan Jonathan Pryce..... Cardinal Houseman Nia Long..... Donna Thomas Kopache..... Father Durning Rade Sherbedgia..... Marion Petrocelli
"Stigmata" starts as a badly made film, proceeds as a muddled one and ends up as psychotic. The final moments of this movie attack the Roman Catholic Church in the manner of a deranged ex-girlfriend -- wasting our time, solemnly declaring ridiculous accusations, making a lot of noise but no sense.
The first act introduces us to Frankie Paige (Patricia Arquette), an attractive Pittsburgh hairdresser who exists in one of those fairytale movie worlds where, at work, she walks in to find everyone greeting her like she's just come back from holiday, and, at night, she always gets to her favourite night club to find her friends already waiting there. There are lots of lingering close-ups of her drinks and cigarettes; look, kids, she's naughty... this is what big grown-up people call a 'wanton lifestyle'!
Meanwhile a priest played by Gabriel Byrne, Father Andrew Kiernan, is travelling around the world investigating reports of miracles. He's an objective, scientific fellow, we learn, who would never be taken in by a hoax. But when he assesses a statue of the Virgin Mary that cries blood, and comes to the conclusion that the relic is genuine, the cardinals at the Vatican don't pay it any mind.
Instead, they just send him on another assignment, this time to examine Frankie. She has been seen reacting to hallucinations and displaying signs of stigmata, a phenomenon whereby Christians with strong faith and empathy with Jesus will break out in the wounds their saviour suffered on the cross. But Frankie is an atheist, and the pointless middle of "Stigmata", which is a battle to stay awake through, mentions this discrepancy a lot without actually explaining it. Instead, every "How could this happen to me?" moment is interrupted by jarring music chords and fits of screaming, as Frankie freaks out like Linda Blair in "The Exorcist".
Is she possessed by something evil, as Blair's character was? I'm still not sure. If I followed the movie correctly, the soul of a dead Catholic priest has invaded her by storing his soul in magic rosary beads, to use her as a messenger and announce his discovery of Christ's own version of the Gospel. The stigmata is a side-effect of all the holy phenomena floating around, and this joyful miracle only seems like an attack by a demonic force because the priest is so darn angry at the state of the Vatican.
This is ridiculous, but gets even more farfetched, when the film explicitly accuses Catholicism of being a conspiracy against God. Just before the end credits, factoids and statistics appear onscreen to tell us how many reports of miracles the Vatican have dismissed as fake. That the director, Rupert Wainwright, could think this is serious evidence of corruption suggests he's the kind of guy who would look at the circus antics of a kooky talk show like "Jerry Springer" and declare them to contain compelling social exposé. Even his visual style gets on my nerves -- from the outset he keeps switching between grainy documentary realism and saturated slow-motion montages of bad dance music, which play like demented Coca-Cola commercials.
Watching Gabriel Byrne in this movie, I pondered the possibility that he enjoys deliberately appearing in bad religious pictures. Only a few weeks ago he played Satan in "End of Days", which, like "Stigmata", used half-baked knowledge about Catholicism as an excuse for a lot of ugly gore and noise. Byrne is a good actor; if you ever pass by a film set and see him, try to get his autograph. If you see a crucifix anywhere nearby, though, ask him the title of the movie he's working on and tell all your friends to avoid it.
COPYRIGHT(c) 2000 Ian Waldron-Mantgani
Please visit, and encourage others to visit, the UK Critic's website, which is located at http://members.aol.com/ukcritic
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews