Catholic-ometer: 2.5 of 5
Enjoyability: 3 of 5
I had no real expectations going into this film. I'd heard it was about a father who'd lost his son and went on a journey after that, but those vague descriptions were about all I knew about this movie. I guess I was afraid it would turn out like "the Father's Tale." It didn't, but I didn't really enjoy it all that much either.
It's a story where a father loses his son in a freak accident while his son is on a pilgrimage, so the father takes his son's ashes on said pilgrimage, as a way to honor his wishes, I guess. It's not an enormously-exciting concept, but I have to admit that it could have been done much worse. However, it could also have been done much better.
On his journey, the father; Tom, runs into a few other pilgrims. One wants to quit smoking, one wants to lose weight, one is looking for an end to his writer's block... they eventually form a group of merry men, if you will, who continue on the road together, each with their own goals and aims, none of them particularly religious, yet all of them with the gall to go on a religious pilgrimage.
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying you need to be a saint to go on a pilgrimage. What I am saying is that when none of the main characters of your pilgrimage movie have any desire to better their souls in any way, you're asking for trouble. The group of them complete the pilgrimage, and then just kind of go back to their own lives. There's a lot of religious imagery in this film, but to me, that counts for precisely jack squat when the meaning and purpose of said imagery is so well-concealed.
If you were very charitable towards this film, you might say that the characters seemed to have a sort of religious experience at the end, and their spiritual lives will probably improve from what they've seen and witnessed, but there's no real proof of that. If you were really bitter with this movie, you could say that it's just trying to use tried-and-true religious imagery, symbols, names and locations to try to elevate secular humanism to a religious level that it doesn't deserve, but there's no proof of that either.
In the end, though, there's no denying that a lot of religious terms and images were used, and nothing of any real consequence came of it. That by itself is something of an insult to those of us who actually know what these things mean and cherish them for the truths that they assist us in acquiring and benefitting from. Am I personally insulted by this movie? Not really. Films with no message are too bland to insult me, but they also don't impress me in any way.
I guess you could say that there's one scene where a woman discusses her history with a child that she almost had, and her abortion, and how she dealt with the grief of the awful crime she committed, which could be a pretty awsome scene if it was handled well, but the discussion is over in a minute and a half, and it's never brought up again. Even when it is brought up, there's no questioning the morality of what was done, just a couple people talking about how they feel.
If you like this film, good for you. If you don't like it, good for you too. Me personally, I can't say I particularly belong to either camp, and I think I could sum up my experience with this film with the simple word "meh."
Still, at least it manages itself better than certain books I've read recently.
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