You should probably know The Exorcism is not a sequel to last year’s The Pope’s Exorcist. Both films star Russell Crowe, where he plays the role of a tortured priest. Since these films are not related, perhaps there is another reason their leading actor is drawn to priest roles. Maybe he sees himself in flawed characters who have a crisis of conscience, or sees the role as an opportunity for a kind of atonement? Either way, thinking about this bizarre juxtaposition is more fun than the movie itself, since The Exorcism takes an admittedly clever idea and diminishes it through bizarre pacing and cheap scares.
Director Joshua John Miller wants his audience to think about William Friedkin’s The Exorcist, a comparison that does him no favors. He starts with a movie-within-a-movie, a remake of the Friedkin classic called The Georgetown Project, a reference to the posh Washington, D.C. neighborhood where it took place. Crowe plays Anthony Miller, a down-on-his-luck actor who is cast as the priest shortly after the original actor (Adrian Pasdar) died under mysterious circumstance. Adam Goldberg plays Peter, the director of The Georgetown Project, and he sees something in the pervasive guilt that emanates from his new star. Rehearsals get underway, and Anthony’s erratic behavior is more than just performance anxiety. He is literally possessed, and so it is up to the on-set priest (David Hyde Pierce) to perform an actual exorcism, rather than consult on a staged one.
Before we see Crowe chew the scenery and spout mandatory blasphemous language, Miller and his co-screenwriter M.A. Fortin introduce a number of subplots. We see Anthony rebuild his relationship with his teenage daughter Lee (Ryan Simpkins), who gets hired as a production assistant. Lee is uneasy with her father, a callback to how his alcoholism nearly drove his family into oblivion. There are also flashbacks to Anthony’s past: he was a former altar boy, and The Exorcism strongly implies – though never outright says – that Anthony was abused by a priest. These are a lot of stories to juggle, so the production needs a sure hand. We need to understand exactly what we are seeing and why, or if scenes withhold crucial information, the reasons why should be clear to the filmmaker. The Exorcism can be clumsy, to the point where you might wonder whether it suffered from post-production interference.
For example, there is an evitable scene where Anthony, in the throes of demonic possession, terrorizes his daughter. At first, Lee cannot be sure whether her father is drunk again, or something worse. The escalation of tension is effective, albeit predictable, and the film’s grim aesthetic is a good match for the material. But once the scene resolves and the script advances, Miller and Fortin make no attempt to build on Lee’s uncertainty. Is she angry with her father, or worried about him? Frequently, there is no coherent answer. Title cards let us know how long the film-within-a-film has been in production, a decision that makes it difficult to suspend our disbelief. How can a film shoot continue when the star is unreliable, not just because he cannot remember his lines, but because something demonic infects the production?
The Exorcism has no adequate answer to this question, and so the film’s driving narrative – the degree to which the demon controls its hero – has no momentum to it. The only alternative is to accept individual scenes as standalone dramas, and there are admittedly some clever inversions, like when the demon inevitably possesses Pierce’s character. Like other films on a similar subject, Miller does not rely on jump scares, exactly, and instead show the helplessness of ordinary, decent people when they must confront evil at its most powerful and manipulative. There are scenes where Crowe says and does unspeakable things, and others where his body contorts in impossible ways. Without any strong narrative tissue, however, it harder to empathize with the frightened characters who have no choice but to watch Anthony in horror. The film’s greatest sin is that it somehow makes demonic possession repetitive, even boring.
Crowe’s recent career has been interesting. Like many aging leading men, he has struggled to find roles that match his commanding presence. He may not have the physique he had from his Gladiator days, and yet he is still capable of smoldering ferocity. Early in the film, there is a moment where Anthony tries out for the priest role, and Peter pushes him into uncomfortable territory. As Anthony, Crowe has to act badly, then show he still has reserves of screen presence, a compelling concept that is as much about Anthony as it is about Crowe himself. The Exorcism does not explore that multifaceted, meta-analysis much further than that, since it would prefer a series of barely related set-pieces where the demon does gross things on camera. The director of the film-within-the-film says he wants to make a psychological drama, not a horror film. A pity that Miller and his team could not follow that example.
Photo courtesy of Vertical
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