Movie Recommedation

Because my health is so up and down I don't get a chance to sit in a movie theater and watch a movie very often. Yesterday, I actually felt up to it and went. I went to see "The Exorcism of Emily Rose" and I highly recommend. Two thumbs up here. Not exactly the feel good movie of the year but it was very well done about a sensitve subject. Here is a quick synopsis of the movie...
Before anything at all happens in The Exorcism of Emily Rose, the new film from director Scott Derrickson, eight ominous words appear on screen:

This film is based on a true story.

It seems like an important thing for us to be aware of right off the bat, because very little in the film to follow resembles any kind of true life, at least as most of us know it.

The Exorcism of Emily Rose is ostensibly based on the story of Anneliese Michel, a German college student who believed she was possessed by multiple demons, including Lucifer, Nero, Judas Iscariot, and Adolf Hitler. In 1975, several years after Michel had started suffering from extreme seizures and exhibiting generally unexplained behavior (compulsions to self-mutilate and publicly urinate; the ability to speak languages Michel had never learned), the Catholic church gave her priest permission to perform an exorcism. Various traditional Church rituals were performed at least once a week for ten months, until, in July of 1976, Michel died of starvation (she had claimed for months that the demons would not allow her to eat). Anneliese’s parents, and the priest who officiated Michel’s exorcism, were brought to trial on charges of manslaughter, and sentenced to six months in prison. Michel's grave has since become an ad-hoc holy site for devout believers, even though the Church later issued a statement denying that Michel had ever been possessed.


Emily Rose takes this story, adapts it to an unnamed, wintry locale in the present-day US and folds it into a strange hybrid of courtroom drama and 70s-era hysteric shock-horror. After a quick look at Emily’s bleak and creaky, unconvincingly snowbound deathplace, presided over by the almost cartoonishly somber Father Moore (Tom Wilkinson), we plunge straight into the world of big city Law and – I mean, law and order – and the rest of Emily’s story is told in dream-logic heavy flashback.

In the present day, Father Moore is about to stand trial. The cynical DA sits at a coolly lit glass table and informs his staff that choosing the right prosecutor is key. “We need a Christian, a Catholic – someone who knows this shit inside out.” We’ve seen this kind of scene before on countless procedural shows; its point seems to be to remind us that, you know, sometimes you gotta play a little dirty in the name of justice. Message received. The ideological lines are thus drawn early on: on one side, you’ve got the law, doctors, and supposed Christians who are so unloyal to their faith that they’re willing to prosecute a representative of their own Church. On the other side, you’ve got God. Which team do you want to be on?

While I don't agree with the inflammatory comments made by this reviewer, it was a good synopsis. Anyway, it was a good movie...not a feel good one. You walk out of there in a daze...I did. If you are in the mood for something a little disturbing, not gory, then this movie is for you.