Ahoy, squirts! Quint here... It seems we weren't ever officially invited to THE EXORCISM OF EMILY ROSE screenings here in Austin, so I still haven't seen the flick, but the more I hear about it the more interested in it I become. Tom Wilkenson is one of my favorite actors working and I love the idea of twisting the genre and focusing on a courtroom drama for half the movie (maybe more... like I said I haven't seen it yet). I'll be in line to see this flick this weekend, when not at QT Fest, of course! Enjoy Capone's review!
Hey, everyone. Capone in Chicago here. The fact that the life and bizarre death of Emily Rose may or may not be based on a true story doesn’t make the film any better or worse. The fact that, in real life, the possession and exorcism of Emily Rose was recognized and sanctioned by the Catholic Church is certainly an interesting bit of trivia, but, again, it doesn’t guarantee that the movie version of these events is any damn good. The fact that The Exorcism of Emily Rose is populated by fine actors such as Laura Linney, Campbell Scott, Tom Wilkinson, and Shohreh Aghdashloo (House of Sand and Fog) doesn’t necessary make this work worthy of your hard-earned money. However, the fact that this movie intrigued me as much as it scared the shit out of me, now we’re talking.
The truth is that The Exorcism of Emily Rose is fascinating on several levels and attempt (with a certain degree of success) to map out the actual events in final months of Emily Rose’s life and those following her death as the priest who attempts to free her of her possession is put on trial for negligent homicide.
The film opens on the day of her death. A doctor visits the Rose family home in rural Minnesota, and it’s clear that they are a small-town clan with deeply religious roots. As the medical examiner enters her room, the family priest (Wilkinson) exits with two police, all looking shell-shocked. When the M.E. says that he can’t say with certainty that Emily’s death was by natural causes, thus begins the case against Father Moore, whom the Rose family had entrusted Emily’s care after the doctor failed to cure her of what appeared to be a severe mental breakdown.
With attorney Erin Bruner (Linney) assigned by her law firm to defend Moore on behalf of their client, the church, the court case pitted medical testimony to Emily’s rapidly deteriorating condition against Father Moore’s (and the Rose family’s) belief that Emily was possessed by evil demons. What’s most noble of the film’s approach to the events is that we’re never 100 percent sure who is right in this case. When a doctor is testifying about the series of events that began during the early days of Emily’s first year of college, the events are portrayed as if she was suffering from a mental illness that caused her to have delusions, physically change and contort her body in horrifying but still possible ways, and utter things in various languages to which she had possibly had had exposed. When Father Moore testifies, we see the demonized version of these events. Both versions of the story are extremely disturbing, and we’re never quite sure which one we want to believe.
Special effects are kept to a minimum her and every attempt is made by director Scott Derrickson to avoid the iconography of The Exorcist, the film Emily Rose will undoubtedly be compared to in every review. I’ll admit, I got a bit of a Linda Blair vibe when Emily was screaming out in her demon voice, speaking German or Latin or Aramaic. But overall, Derrickson successfully avoids the trappings of the vastly superior film. Not that Emily Rose isn’t effective. The filmmakers have wisely opted to fill the cast with great actors. Linney is quite good as the “non believer,” whose lack of faith is tested as she to gets a few late-night scares during the course of the trial. Campbell Scott plays prosecuting attorney Ethan Thomas, a shrewdly chosen church-going attorney, whose job much convince the jury that even he isn’t buying this exorcism nonsense.
But the real shock for me is Carpenter as Emily. She not only has to be convincing as a 19-year-old girl being taken through the ringer by the forces of darkness, she has to show the torment of a young woman of faith who does not comprehend why God would allow her to suffer such pain and indignity at the hands these demons. And, man, can this girl scream.
The courtroom scenes sometimes slip into cliché (big shock there) as Linney and Scott put on their best lawyer faces and march around the room, object to things, and provide the most dramatic closing statements as if they’ve never done so before. (For the record, I have no idea if actual court transcripts were used in reconstructing these scenes.) But what the film lacks in originality in its depiction of the legal process, it makes up for with some truly terrifying sequences involving strange figures, noises, and events surrounding poor Emily’s ordeal. The only time major special effects are put into play are when we are seeing things through Emily’s eyes, as if to say “These may only be events she sees.” It’s a smart device and one that keeps us guessing.
The Exorcism of Emily Rose is a tough sell, since we know right off the bat that Emily is dead and that even a favorable outcome for the priest still means that many lives have been destroyed as a result of her terrible demise. There is a bit of hope, though, in the form of one sequence involving a vision that comes to Emily in the midst of all the hell on earth. In the scene, she gets a small grain of hope that all of her suffering may not be in vain. The film is a jolt (well, as much of one as a PG-13 film can give) and is guaranteed to make you think a little as you’re peeling your hands away from your eyes.
Capone
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