Calvary, or Oh My God, That Was Kind of Depressing

The fact that I’m willing to drive the hour it takes to get to Fort Collins to go see a movie says a lot about my priorities. The fact that I have to drive an hour to be able to see a lot of movies says a lot about Wyoming. Trade off of unbelievably cheap tuition I guess. Anyways, I’m sure you’re wondering what this has to do with movies. At this point in this blog’s life you are most likely coming to this page because I begged you to over Facebook or Twitter. Thank you for taking the time to click on this by the way. At any rate, on one of these trips I went to go see Calvary.

It stars Brendan Gleeson as a priest who gets a death threat. I was first introduced to Gleeson while watching In Bruges and he impressed me there. (I’m going to have to do a write up on In Bruges; it’s probably my favorite comedy of all time) In this movie, he is downright amazing. He plays a truly good man, something rarely seen in today’s media. Most characters are antiheros of some type. This character, Father James, is not perfect though. Some of his actions cause him to get beat up. Alcohol can do that to you. He is a human character, full of faults, but trying to do his best to fix them.

The supporting cast in this movie is phenomenal as well. They are not good people though. Most of them are downright assholes. The best by far among them is Dylan Moran as Michael Fitzgerald, a millionaire whose family has left him. Father James has a few interactions with him, including a hilarious scene where Fitzgerald pees on a priceless painting to prove that he doesn’t care about his money. Other characters include James’s daughter Fiona, a socially maladjusted young man named Milo (His conversations with James are downright hilarious), an atheist doctor Frank Hart, and an enigmatic writer, among others. They are all extremely well written and well-acted.

Calvary is technically impressive as well. The cinematography is amazing, with a muted color palette and beautiful shots of the Irish coast. The editing is spot on as well. The director, John Michael McDonagh did a great job with this movie as a whole. It’s one of my favorites so far this year.

You aren’t going to have to worry about spoilers here by the way. I don’t want to ruin this for you. The storytelling is unbelievably good. This movie changes from comedic to serious, then back to comedic in very short order. Even at a very tense scene towards the end, it throws its hilarious writing at you. It doesn’t make the drama any less cheap either. The ending is extremely depressing, yet moving. It’s extremely hard to explain without spoiling so just trust me.

I went down to Fort Collins expecting a good movie, but what I got was a near masterpiece. It blew me away. Calvary had me laughing harder at a movie than I have in a while, as well as near tears. It’s hard to find movies that balance comedy with tragedy so well.