Calvary is an enthralling black comedy so dark, it absorbs most of its light

It’s a difficult thing to escape from horrors in your past, but sometimes it’s impossible. It can be difficult enough when it’s just the memory of a failed date or test or perhaps losing your job. Even then, your past affects you and changes your future despite what you try to do to go past it. Things could be much worse, and for some people, they are. Those of us more fortunate cannot really judge others, but we can try to understand. Sometimes people with complicated pasts turn to faith or abandon it, searching for meaning or finding none. We often find humor in the darkest times, but others find only sorrow and pain. Goodness, in its subtle, tricky way, can be even harder to find than greatness. It’s there, in the little things, the small efforts, the ways you help save people a tiny bit at a time. But sometimes, trying your hardest just isn’t enough.

Calvary is a new film from Irish director John Michael McDonagh, coming from the English word for Golgotha, the place where Jesus was brought to be crucified. There is a similar journey of pain and bleakness here, but let’s not start there just yet. Brendan Gleeson plays Father James, the priest of a small Irish parish and a good man, working with believers and nonbelievers alike to improve people’s lives.

But then at a confession, the confessor tells Father James that due to the confessor’s horrible history with the church, he is going to kill Father James, despite that fact that the man had nothing to do with anything bad. He gives the priest one week before he will kill him. So now Father James proceeds through what may be his final week on Earth, but will he just go through the motions? Will he try to find out who’s planning to kill him? And will he even tell anyone? It’s not an easy movie to watch, that’s for sure, but there’s a heart to it. We see it through his interactions with his daughter (Kelly Reilly), and how Father James still tries to help others despite the lingering specter of doom hovering over him.

Brendan Gleeson has an honesty and beauty to his performance here that is just phenomenal. If this guy isn’t seeing Oscar nominations, I will be quite peeved. There are no weak performances here, to be sure, but some of the minor characters aren’t quite as interesting, with backstories sometimes hinted at so subtly that they become complete ciphers. When that happens, it is hard to care about them. But Father James though, I cared about him. As the days go on and the hourglass empties, there is an increasing tension and fear engendering in the audience, and then the movie hits with you something hard or funny. Not always, though. All throughout is the beautiful backdrop, the demonstration of beauty despite pain, which is evocative in its own way. This movie is being marketed as a “dark comedy,” but I’d really call it a drama with comedic elements. That said, I have to say I really did like this movie.

The film can be difficult at times and it may not end in a way you’d like, but this is drama that isn’t afraid to be different and dark while still keeping strongly defined characters. I may not have liked all the subplots and perhaps the bleakness seemed too much at times. It’s also not necessarily something I’ll want to see again anytime soon. But there’s no question that Brendan Gleeson has put in here one of the best performances of the year.