Film Review, Buffalo News, August 2006
It’s pretty brave to ever make a movie with “exorcism” in the title, because immediate comparisons will be drawn to a certain other film with that theme. But the title is pretty much where the similarities end, because The Exorcism of Emily Rose is not really a horror film. The trailers may have led us to believe otherwise, but it’s not. It’s a courtroom drama. It’s an examination of the role that faith plays in the justice system. And alright, maybe after all that, it’s a horror movie.
Emily Rose stars Laura Linney (Kinsey) as a lawyer chosen to defend Father Thomas Moore (Batman Begins) as he stands trial for criminal negligence in the death of 19-year-old Emily Rose (Jennifer Carpenter, White Chicks). The prosecution claims Father Moore abused and neglected Emily until she died, but Father Moore – with the rare backing of the Catholic Church – maintains that she suffered physical trauma as the result of a demonic possession.
As the trial progresses, Emily’s story is slowly revealed. The courtroom scenes are slow and deliberate, sort of like watching CourtTV. But the flashback scenes are creepy enough, without employing too many movie exorcism clichés. Emily and her family, however, are stereotypically “rural” to an offensive degree – at one point her flat, expressionless mother intones that she didn’t “approve of dancing… or boys.” It’s terribly unbelievable and unfair to these characters, and it makes the whole “true story” angle harder to swallow.
But the cast is mostly strong, and quite impressively, the movie stays neutral in the sense that in the end, you’re not quite sure what to believe really happened. Since all the testimony comes straight from witnesses, and the verdict resolves nothing, we’re left to draw our own conclusions.
Comments