Caught this at the Toronto fest yesterday and it was really good ... some plot points parallel Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures. Very well shot, fantastically layered characters and incredible performances from all three leads. It's got a very strong religious sub-text that's handled remarkably well ... Focus just bought it so it should be out in North America pretty soon. My review is here and the festival write up is here.

A link link to JRobert's opposite reaction.

-s.

Oh man, I so disagree with JRobert's take on this ... spoiler action coming ...

Phil is NOT a fraud. Not at all. His faith is totally legitimate ... he latched onto it in prison as a way of providing an escape from himself and I truly believe that he was sincere throughout. What you see in him is the initial buzz wearing off and a flash of anger when he realizes that his old issues are still with him. Tamsin views his belief as a challenge to her own drifting and sets out to break him down ... when she does and he realizes how easily it was done to him he lashes out at himself and is both angry and confused by the old nature still being with him. When his sister defies him and he snaps - he's just as afraid of being left alone as anyone else in the film is - he realizes again that the old self is still present and just as close to the surface as ever and that's when he goes down and snaps at the people in the prayer meeting, accusing THEM of being frauds because the complete change of spirit that he was promised has not happened. I know a lot of people that have gone through this exact process and the film makers just nailed it. The only person you can possibly say Phil was lying to was himself, and I don't think that was the case. He was over-sold on the effects of faith and his anger at the end is purely in response to having been sold a false bill of goods.

I think the way they handled the faith issues in this film was absolutely masterful. They've absolutely nailed both the tenor and content of charismatic prayer meetings - the cadence and rhythm was just dead on - and treated the faith issues with respect, while also offering legitimate criticism by shooting the prayer meeting sequences entirely from an outsiders perspective and thereby showing just how self absorbed and insensitive over-zealous evangelists can be. Mona's reaction to her newly converted brother is flawless. I thought this was an incredibly well written and very well acted film ... at the moment it's sitting third or fourth in my ratings of what I've seen (3 Iron, House of Fying Daggers and I Heart Huckabees are the ones to give it a good run ... A Hole In My Heart is in spitting distance as well) ...

I thought we already had a thread on this related topic, but I can't find it ... anyhoo:

- - -

Now I'm a believer
Dead Man's Shoes is not a defence of Tony Martin-style vigilante justice, he insists. "I don't really believe in revenge. It doesn't cure a f---ing thing, and if anything, that's what this film's about. I have more of a Christian view on it. Forgiveness is the most powerful thing of all." It's slightly disturbing to hear Considine bring up Christianity. In My Summer of Love, he plays another character possessed of a dangerous degree of moral certainty. This one is a former alcoholic who has renounced his violent past and become a born-again Christian. At one point he erects a giant crucifix on a Yorkshire hill, and makes a passionate speech to his fellow Christians about cleansing the valley of evil. His earnest, enthusiastic tone in the film is not dissimilar to the one he's using now. "I did a lot of research on that guy," he says. "I went on an Alpha course [an introduction to Christianity], and I befriended some local Christians. I just found them to be the most open people. They'd be there reading their Bibles and breaking out into song and I'd sit there trying not to laugh. And they were like, 'Yeah. Bit wacky isn't it?' I believe in God, but I'm not sure I could fly the flag like them. But after the Alpha course -- yeah, I felt more that he was there."
Guardian, September 24

I knew it!!! The tone of the prayer meetings in the film was just so dead on I knew that they had to have spent time in those circles. It really is kind of unnerving just how spot on they are, right down to the circle prayers with people inserting the word 'lord' every four or five words, but it's always played respectfully, I thought ...

I saw the trailer before Brothers last night, the local press screening is next week, and reviews are starting to trickle in...

I thought of just cutting-and-pasting, but, after reading my response for the first time in months, I realized that it's packed with spoilers. I think the film is definitely worth seeing, but, like J. Robert, I was disappointed by the final act.

Pawel Pawelikowski discusses why he added the born-again character to the film version of My Summer of Love:[indent]iW: You invented the character of Phil, who wasn't in the novel. Why did you include him?

PP: I needed another strong character who would put Mona's character and the girls' relationship in a different context. And I needed to add something to the theme of enchantment.

iW: Are you trying to conflate Phil's search for God and religion and Mona and Tamsin's passion?

PP: There is a parallel, yes, but it's not intended to be a comment about faith and love. Simply, both brother and sister are enchanted by something -- one with a person, the other with the idea of God. And partly, Mona turns to Tamsin because she loves her brother, who's become unreachable. And then the brother becomes fascinated by Tamsin too. Of course, Tamsin is also drawn to the brother -- his masculine energy -- and she's tickled by the idea of finding faith, since she of course believes in nothing. It becomes quite a complicated web of emotions.[/indent]FWIW.

Darren, I haven't read your blog post yet, but your summary here echoes my own response to the film.

I saw it at a press screening over a week ago and have avoided saying anything online until now, since it didn't open in Canada until tomorrow (and tomorrow is already "today" in some time zones...), but I didn't jot down my thoughts at the time and my memories of the film have already faded somewhat ...

Anyway, I believe the gist of my complaint with the film's treatment of faith is that it treats the Christian community as nothing more than a Greek chorus for the Paddy Considine character. And I just don't buy this -- not in its present form, at least.

The guy just got out of prison, right? So who led him to the Lord there? Who is his discipler, or spiritual director, or whatever you'd call the person he feels accountable to? All these people surrounding him -- did they all become Christians BECAUSE of him, which might explain why they sit back and let him do what he does? or were they all believers BEFORE him, in which case why are they suddenly taking their cue from him?

Apparently the Considine character isn't in the book at all, so he was invented just for the film, which means all those Christian non-characters were invented just for the film too. When Tamsin [spoiler]seduces the Considine character[/spoiler], she laughs and says, "You're too easy!" And that was how I felt about the film's portrayal of faith in general -- the director had made it "too easy" to expose these characters as frauds, etc.

*averts eyes*

It's next on my film rental list. I'll participate in this conversation this weekend.