. Hi everyone, welcome back to the theater!
I've got an interesting one on tap for you all tonight, that was requested/ recommended by some of you: 'The Exorcism of Emily Rose.' Made in 2005, this movie was loosely based on actual events (Though the girl in question was named Annaliese Michel in real life), and stars Laura Linney and Tom Wilkinson.
It mainly centers around a parish priest named Father Richard Moore (Wilkinson), who is on trial for negligent homicide. A girl from his parish, Emily Rose (Jennifer Carpenter), shortly after going to college, appeared to be possessed by demons, though a university doctor thought she merely had epilepsy, and prescribed a drug for her. Moore was called on by Emily and her family to perform an exorcism upon her, but it failed, he counseled Emily to stop taking the epilepsy drug, and she died some time after that, her malnourishment preventing her body from healing from the wounds it had suffered. For doing this, Moore was believed to have caused Emily’s death, and was thus charged with negligent homicide. The Catholic archdiocese agrees to pay for Moore’s legal defense, but only on the grounds that Moore not testify on the witness stand, out of fear that what he might say could embarrass the church. Moore, however, demands to be allowed to testify, because he feels Emily’s story needs to be told, and he rejects every offered plea bargain for that reason. In a strange turn of events, the defense attorney selected is a rising star named Erin Bruner (Linney) who happens to be an agnostic but sees the case as an opportunity to be made a full partner in her law firm if successful, while the prosecuting attorney in the case, Ethan Thomas (Campbell Scott), is apparently a devout Christian.
Erin’s skepticism is soon challenged. Strange things begin happening to her, which were similar to what happened to Emily as well as to Father Moore, and all happening at 3:00 AM (Apparently a time with a lot of demonic significance). We see through flashbacks and testimonies what had happened and some of the torments that Emily had gone through.
The prosecutor Ethan’s case is quite solid for much of the film. He brings in the campus doctor who says that he prescribed the medication Gambutrol to Emily, and points out that much of the strange phenomena that people observed in Emily could easily be attributed to epilepsy and possibly psychoses. Erin tries to strengthen her case by first attempting to prove that demonic possession is at least a possibility; She brings in a anthropologist who is something of an expert/ specialist on demonic possession and exorcisms from various cultures around the world, but upon taking the stand, the anthropologist in question comes across as eccentric at best and does very little to strengthen the defense’s case.
Then, she has a bit of a breakthrough; She learns that a doctor/ psychologist, Dr. Cartwright, who was present for the exorcism and monitored Emily’s vital signs, may be willing to testify, which would both corroborate Father Moore’s account and also beat Ethan at his own game by offering an equally respected medical opinion that would undermine the credibility of the campus doctor. Problem is, Dr. Cartwright ultimately chickens out from testifying (With it heavily implied that he, like Erin and Father Moore, had been seeing some seriously sinister things) and abruptly dies. Things get even worse when, defying the requests of both the archdiocese and her own boss in her law firm, she has Father Moore take the stand, accompanied by an audio recording of the attempted exorcism. It conveys the terrifying events that occurred that night, but Ethan pokes potentially serious holes in it during the cross- examination, and the media has a field day with it. Finally, with time running out and both Father Moore’s freedom and her own career on the line, Erin does what she thinks is best to try and win the case.
The problems I had with ‘The Exorcism of Emily Rose’ mainly center around the prosecuting attorney, Ethan Thomas, and how he’s portrayed. They say that he’s a devout Christian who teaches Sunday School at his church, but you wouldn’t be able to tell that from how he acts in the courtroom. He scoffs at and even ridicules Father Moore’s accounts and those of anyone else who believes in demonic possession, and in his closing argument refers to Moore’s beliefs as “Archaic superstitions.†I’ve seen atheists who’ve shown more respect towards Catholic dogma than him. I think it would have been nice if they could have maybe included a subplot or something about him outside of the trial, and how he reconciles his own Christian faith with his job presiding over the prosecution in the case. There’s a scene which comes kind of close to doing that when Erin asks him his opinion on the matter, but they could have done a lot more. Also, while Ethan does a good job of trying to explain away most of the possible supernatural elements of what happened to Emily, in the scene when he’s cross- examining Father Moore, he literally says nothing in response to Father Moore’s observation that on the night the exorcism was performed, Emily was still taking Gambutrol, the drug which was supposed to suppress the very symptoms that Moore and the other witnesses were observing with their own eyes. Considering that this could potentially shoot down the main point Thomas was trying to make with his case (That Emily was epileptic and Moore’s advising her to stop taking Gambutrol directly contributed to her death), you’d think he’d try to address that.
That being said, ‘The Exorcism of Emily Rose’ was both frightening and riveting. The scenes showing Emily’s initial possession in the time before the attempted exorcism has some extremely freaky visuals that made me jump a couple times. That’s nothing, however, compared to the scenes with the exorcism. With very little use of visual effects for this scene, we see Emily’s body twisting and contorting in highly disturbing ways, hear Emily shrieking in six different languages to identify the six demons possessing her (Including Lucifer himself) loud enough to scare the horses in the Roses’ stable (Where much of the exorcism occurs) into busting out of their pens and running off, see rats and snakes being controlled by Emily, and experience a lot of other imagery that stuck with me for quite a while afterwards.
Also, as a devout Christian and aspiring minister myself, I was quite intrigued by the various theological questions the film raises, such as obviously the existence of demons and possession, the roles medical science and faith can each play, and why God can allow good, holy people to suffer the way Emily has. I found it rather interesting that in many of the courtroom scenes, it seems like each side of the argument is blaming the other side for Emily’s death: The prosecution maintains that Emily had severe epilepsy and possible psychosis and that Father Moore’s recommendation that she stop taking the prescribed drug as well as not having her hospitalized directly contributed to her death; In contrast, the defense side and Father Moore maintain that Emily’s problem was spiritual/supernatural rather than medical, and that the prescribed drug Emily was taking had an intoxicating effect on her brain which was why the exorcism failed and thus why Emily died. The movie does not take one side of the argument over the other very much, but strives to show that each side can have potentially valid points.
Now, for the performances. Laura Linney does a wonderful job showing the full arc that Erin takes over the course of the film; A skeptic, she finds herself slowly starting to believe that there may indeed be a supernatural element behind what happened to Emily, and begins seeing some of it herself. We’re left definitely wondering where she’ll go from here and what she’ll take from the whole experience.
Tom Wilkinson is perfect as Father Moore. He does not come across as insane, a fanatic, or a fraud (Usually clergymen in films are portrayed as at least one of these), but rather as a perfectly sane, dedicated man of God who knows what he saw and experienced, genuinely cared for Emily throughout all of it, and knows he has a responsibility to make sure that Emily’s story is heard, regardless of what happens to himself as a result.
Although, as I said, I didn’t particularly like the way the prosecuting attorney, Ethan Thomas, was portrayed in the film, Campbell Scott gives a good performance as him. He makes Ethan strong, confident, dedicated to what he sees as right and just, and the sort of attorney you would not want to see as a prosecutor if you were ever on trial.
Of course, I must talk about Jennifer Carpenter’s performance as Emily, because it is absolutely magnificent. She portrays every aspect of Emily perfectly; How initially happy and excited she is to learn she has received a college scholarship, her fear as she first begins seeing the strange and terrifying things around her as the possession starts, and finally, her consumed by the demons inhabiting her body and using it like a puppet. Her body language, her use of her voice and various languages, all of it makes for quite possibly the single best portrayal of a possessed person I have ever seen in a film.
So, that’s ‘The Exorcism of Emily Rose.’ Part supernatural horror film, part courtroom drama, and a fascinating film which I’m glad I have now seen.
Be sure to come back tomorrow, I’ll have a double feature planned, and it’s a good one!
