As I am a lover of scary, thriller-type movies (both good and bad), it should come as little surprise to you that I caught The Exorcism of Emily Rose today. An interesting, but not great movie.
Inevitably, people will compare it to The Exorcist, a movie which I personally don't hold in the high esteem so many others do. The principle difference between that movie and this one is that Emily Rose largely tries to sit on the fence about the supernatural.
It's a courtroom drama, first and foremost. It could easily have been a two-part episode of The Practice, with higher production values (particularly given how weird some of the cases on David Kelley TV shows get). We're presented, both in testimony and in "alternate flashbacks," both medical and supernatural explanations for the events that take place. By contrast, The Exorcist makes no bones about it -- demons are real in that movie.
The courtroom drama is compelling at moments, but drags at others. The entire movie would be much worse, save for the actors that do much to elevate it -- Laura Linney and Tom Wilkinson most of all.
Where the film most falters, in my opinion, is in placing the titular event a good half hour before the end of the movie. After much buildup, and a few decently supenseful sequences, the priest takes the stand to tell his story, and the exorcism is protrayed in a suitably graphic and impactful manner.
Unfortunately, after that, there are a number of far less interesting moments, including him later taking the stand a second time to read a letter written by Emily herself about her thoughts on the matter. While this motivation is not necessarily unimportant, they don't really feel like the meat of the story. The writing and/or editing of the film would have been improved, in my opinion, to place as much of this material as possible before the testimony of the exorcism. There should have been no more than 10 minutes of movie after that.
So, overall, I'd have to rate the movie about a C+. If you're into this sort of tale of demonic possession, or are intrigued by the "is it real or isn't it?"-ness of it all, then it might push as high as a B for you. (I'm thinking of one reader of my blog in particular when I say that.) Otherwise, I'd recommend The Mothman Prophecies instead, a much superior and thematically similar Laura Linney movie.
2 comments:
If I understand you, the movie might improve greatly had it been edited differently.
Yes, I think so. Perhaps if I'd edited my post a little differently, I'd have made my point better. ;-)
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