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Stigmata | Year: 1999 Classification: Drama Directed: - Rupert Wainwright Actors/Actresses: - Gabriel Byrne - Nia Long - Patricia Arquette Creepy and Beautiful Though I understand that Stigmata got a lot of poor and unfair reviews and it is not for everyone, I STILL think it's a wonderful movie! I left the theater with my jaw hanging and eyes gaping at how good it really was. As always, Gabriel Byrne has a way of pulling you into the film and into the feelings of the characters....especially his. Through his character who is a Catholic Preist, I FELT his struggle with love and religion - both common struggles to anyone who has a heart, soul, or brain. I never found any fault with ANYTHING that happened in the movie, like the fact that if Patricia Arquette was posessed by a holy Saint, I don't think he would be trying to seduce Father Kiernan (Byrne). No one who nitpicks EVER enjoys a movie! Some things to enjoy: the artistic direction was beautiful in a creepy, X-files sort of way and they couldn't have picked someone better than Billy Corgan to compose music. (My favorite band is the Smashing Pumpkins, favorite Actor - Gabriel Byrne...you can see how I loved this movie!) Corgan added an extra demension to the film as I kept thinking I heard heartbeats coming from the back of the theater. The main thing that attracted me to this movie (Byrne aside) was all the commotion surrounding the "bad rep" that Catholics were given. I personally found it funny that, as a whole, they spend too much of their time dishing it out to others but they can't take it themselves. This movie is like a government conspiracy only it involves corruption among a sanction of society that undoubtedly has INFINITELY more power than the government - the religious institutions. As with all conspiracy movies, all I have to say is that it really makes you think.... Truth molded to entertainment An incredible soundtrack propels Stigmata as the best movie I have seen in decades. The bare bones of the movie was about the struggle for oppressed truth to be brought to public attention. Certain truths are hidden for political, medical,...selfish reasons. Religious truths, be it small or large, are often held undisclosed by another country or equally powerful holder. The religious truth pursued in the movie was that to love God didn't mean you had to pray inside of a church or attend to a minister. The Gospel of St. Thomas, scholars edition, that was found near where the Dead Sea scrolls were found, was used as supporting evidence. The priest who tried to decipher the scroll and make it public met an untimely death. The spiritual influences in pushing the truth forward will be enjoyed by people who believe firmly in the non-physical world interacting with and on the human world. The use of light and dark, music or a mix of sound effects with music really added suspense and maintained it. Wonderful job by Patricia Arquette who played the unsuspecting messenger, Frankie Paige, and Gabriel Bryne was a compelling and believable character, Father Kiernan, who doubted miracles as the scientific eye sent to dash the miracle of stigmata in Frankie Paige. Not bad but a bit too preposterous Gabriel Byrne is Andrew Kiernan, a scientifically trained priest employed by the Vatican to go off and investigate alleged cases of miracles. He's really keen to look into a case he came upon in Brazil where a statue of the Virgin wept blood following the death of some local holy man. Instead his rather unpleasant boss, Cardinal Houseman (Jonathan Price), sends him to Philadelphia check up the case of Frankie Paige (Patricia Arquette) who is having some strange hallucinatory experiences and has strange inexplicable wounds appearing on her wrists (as if made by nails) and her back (as if made by being whipped). What Kiernan doesn't yet realize is that these two cases are directly connected... Like Gregory Hoblit's "Fallen" a year previously, this tries to breathe new life into the old "Exorcist" formula - mainstrean Hollywood films that deal with the theme of possession while taking themselves terribly seriously. Like "Fallen" this works quite nicely when it's a mystery but when the mystery is stripped away and we see what our hero and heroine are up against, it all turns out to be a bit silly and a whole lot less scary and disturbing than it's intended to be. The nice bits are the opening hour or so where we get a nice feel for Frankie's terrified confusion about what on earth is happening to her, complemented nicely by a more sophisticated bafflement from Kiernan, who has studied all this stuff for ever, but can't see why on earth a phenomenon associated exclusively with people of extreme sanctity should suddenly be manifesting itself on the person of this entirely unbelieving young woman. I certainly got intrigued by this point to understand what was going on. But the solution turned out to be decidedly lame. Expect to be mildly entertained but not particularly scared. Buy Stigmata at Amazon.com Buy posters at Allposters.com Jamster - the latest ringtones for your phone!  Search with Walhello on the Internet on Stigmata Search with the Priority Search Engine on Stigmata This page in other languages: Suomeksi | Nederlands | Deutsch
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