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-If some governmental agency insisted in
honesty in Hollywood film titles, this movie
wouldn't be called "The Exorcism of Emily Rose;"
it would be called "The Trail about the Exorcism
of Emily Rose." This might save hundreds of
thousands of teenagers millions of dollars as
they rush into a PG-13 movie expecting the titular
college-aged girl to spew pea soup and shove
a cross up her pussy and instead found the sedate
Laura Linney and somnambulistic Tom Wilkerson
sitting around a courtroom.
Still, "The Exorcism of Emily Rose" is
an interesting and sometime compelling film.
Told in flashback via a courtroom scene and
prison cell interviews, we see the story of
Emily's demonic "possession" and how it was
handled by her doctors and a priest. There are
about 15 minutes here of flashbacks that are
truly about Emily being possessed and acting
all freaky but the rest is your typical "made-for-TV"
style courtroom drama.
In the end, there is a supposed reason
for Emily's supposed demonic possession or,
at least, a supposed reason why she allowed
herself to be killed by it. This silly and juvenile
reason seems like something concocted by a college
freshman in the 70's. I think I even remembered
hearing about this story (as a book) or a story
similar to it when I was a teenager. This was
the kind of thing that my teenage sister loved.
This is the kind of urban myth that those teenage
girls who read "Flowers in the Attic" loved
to sit around and talk about. Whatever the reality
may be, one might even believe the Catholic
church was behind this film if they weren't
portrayed in a somewhat less than flattering
way in the piece.
Regardless, the film simply doesn't delve
deeply enough into Emily's childhood and family
life to be satisfactory in making its point.
We never learn about her as a child and her
family seem so devout and rural that we assume
she may have had her mind tampered with since
early childhood. Emily (played by Jennifer Carpenter
here, who looks eerily like the older daughter
Mary Ellen in TV's "The Waltons") also has some
sort of "friendship" with a boy in college and
her feelings about this situation are not revealed.
With so much of Emily's background and ethical,
moral as well as the religious feelings she
may have had remaining completely undisclosed
here, it makes it very difficult to swallow
the large bittersweet pill that we are asked
to imbibe on faith at the end of the film.
Notes:
Also with Campbell Scott, Henry Czerny
and Mary Beth Hurt.
Supposedly based on the story of a German
girl who lived in the 70's named Anneliese Michel
and for a time the project was known as "The
Exorcism of Anneliese Michel."
Filmed in Canada.
Viewed in Austin in September 2005 with
my friend Johnny Oh!
Report Card
Script: C+
Acting: C+
Cinematography\Lighting: C-
Special Effects\Make Up: B-
Music: C
Final Grade: C
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