Credit: DVDtown.com
Director:
Scott Derrickson
Cast:
Erin Bruner: Laura Linney
Father Moore: Tom Wilkinson
Ethan Thomas: Campbell Scott
Doctor: Shohreh Aghdashloo
Emily Rose: Jennifer Carpenter
Karl Gunderson: Colm Feore
Judge Brewster: Mary Beth Hurt
The Movie
If you’re going to do a movie about exorcism, one of the keys to the success of your film is whether or not you can bring anything new to the screen. Comparisons to William Friedkin’s The Exorcist are completely unavoidable in a case like this and hardly ever are they favorable comparisons. With Exorcism of Emily Rose at least the concept is a bit novel. From the trailers and posters, you would think the movie is a standard Exorcism film, or more akin to a film like The Ring, but what Director Scott Derrickson has actually constructed is a decent Courtroom Drama.
The story is actually an adaptation of the real life story of Anneliese Michel, a German girl said to have been possessed and then died during her exorcism. While this film changes many of the events, the basic story is still there. The girl’s priest was put on trial after the exorcism, and the movie depicts those events in Hollywood fashion.
The film stars Tom Wilkinson as Father Moore, the priest on trial for criminal negligence after Emily’s (Jennifer Carpenter) death. The prosecution claims that Emily was not possessed, but suffered from a rare case of psychotic epilepsy, and that Father Moore is responsible for her death by talking her out of taking medication. The interesting thing is that the film makers are very ambiguous as whether or not Emily is possessed or not.
The scenes of possession and the exorcism ritual are told in flashback during Father Moore’s testimony. Tom Wilkinson is the sole reason why this film is able to succeed. The plot and cinematography are barely over TV Movie quality, but his performance as Father Moore is so sincere and loving that it creates real sympathy for the character’s plight. The film takes no real stand as to when possession is real, but Father Moore believes it to be so we side with him emotionally.
The Horror scenes are not particularly scary, but the conservative nature with which they are presented leaves them ambiguous enough that the prosecution’s cases in the courtroom scenes have some merit. This creates some decent drama has its unclear whether the jury will side with Father Moore or convict him. Once again though, those expecting a lot of scares just won’t find them here.
The story is an engaging one at times and Jennifer Carpenter does a decent job of portraying Emily as a poor innocent thrown into a terrible situation. Campbell Scott, as prosecutor Ethan Thomas is an effective antagonist, but for a character that is supposed to be a devout man of faith, he has no problem putting a Priest in jail. Laura Linney does what she can, but the script doesn’t always give her a lot to work with. Writer/Director Scott Derrickson gets credit for combining the Horror and Courtroom genres, but also has to take responsibility for how pedestrian the film feels at times.
Once again, the only exceptional thing about the film is Tom Wilkinson. The actor is on an amazing streak as of late and adds credibility to nearly every project he’s involved with. The Exorcism of Emily Rose is another fine performance that is quite moving within the rest of these ho-hum predictable proceedings.
An uneven movie, but not totally without merit The Exorcism of Emily Rose will not win any awards, but will elicit a few rentals and that’s fine. If you want a scary, mind-blowing film about possession, just go rent The Exorcist again. If you’re looking to entertain yourself for two hours, you could do much worse than The Exorcism of Emily Rose.
Score: 6.5/10
The DVD:
The Video
The movie looks fine. Director Scott Derrickson tried to add a lot of color to the film and that facet of the film comes out nicely on this disc. The film is presented in an Anamorphic Widescreen with an aspect ratio of 2.40:1.
The Audio
The movie sounds about as good as it looks. The soundtrack is in Dolby Digital 5.1 and doesn’t let down when the movie has the occasional “boo” scare.
SPECIAL FEATURES: 3 Featurettes, Audio Commentary, Deleted Scene
Genesis of the Story – This Featurette goes over how Director Scott Derrickson went about discovering the story of Anneliese Michel and decided to fictionalize it. This runs about 19 minutes, but isn’t anything special.
Casting the Film – This mini-doc runs about 11 minutes, and from the title I’m sure you can determine that it features the casting of the film. Derrickson really loves Laura Linney, but may overdo how well she does in this film.
Visual Design – This Featurette goes over the different aspects of the film’s production design from using CGI for background cityscapes to heavy use of color in the film.
Audio Commentary by Writer/Director Scott Derrickson – This is a pretty chatty commentary, but unfortunately does not have a lot of insight. Derrickson talks about how he was actually doing research for Jerry Bruckheimer when he was presented with this story. Most of the other tidbits on the commentary are repeated in the other featurettes.
Deleted Scene – This is a pretty weak deleted scene that was cut for both time and its bad dialogue. As Derrickson mentions in his commentary, when an actor has the line “You look like you’re in need of a friend,” when picking up a girl, there’s no way its going to work.
Score: 4.5/10
