Review

Culture

Film & TV

Weirdness

31 October 2023

5 min read

When horror is horrifyingly bad

A classic horror film’s sequel deeply disappoints priest Yaroslav Walker, missing opportunities to address psychological and spiritual power.

Yaroslav Walker

Yaroslav is Vicar of Christ Church, Hampstead.

A man and a women stand looking in the same direction with concerned faces.

Ellen Burstyn and Leslie Odom Jr are concerned about the reviews.

Universal Pictures.

That’s it. I have nothing more to say about the film in this review - The Exorcist: Believer. If you want a proper, knowledgeable, definitive derogatory diatribe against this dreadful waste of celluloid, may I suggest you watch this review by Mark Kermode. The good Doctor loves the original Exorcist more than any other reviewer I’m aware of and is the expert witness you need if you want to understand the absolute abomination this ‘film’ is (and, more importantly, is not!). I don’t have the energy. However, I do have the Church’s authority to speak on matters of faith and doctrine, so instead of my usual theology-smuggle at the end of a review, can we just dive right into it?

SPOILERS AHEAD – trust me, it doesn’t matter…

You can’t comment on an exorcism film without reference to the original – The Exorcist. Believer is David Gordon Green making a something of a sequel to the original; this went well with his first Halloween film, and then turned horrifyingly, stupidly bad with the second and third outings (and such treatment is promised for the Exorcist franchise). The Exorcist is a club sandwich of thematic wonder. William Peter Blatty was both a tremendously talented writer and also a thoughtful, intelligent, and committed Roman Catholic. When he wrote the novel of The Exorcist, he created a popular (slightly bloated) theological masterpiece. Adapting the script for William Friedkin to direct, he took the core themes and trimmed all the fat. The result is gorgeously lean, muscular, agile film that moves at a clip and doesn’t allow you a moment to forget the searing questions of faith, and doubt, and family, and failure, and sin.

Believer raises no such questions. If it has any sort of theme or message it seems to be this. The demonic is there not to sow random chaos, horror, pain and destruction (a good understanding of ‘evil’ as ‘nothing’, very much in keeping with a conception of evil formalised in Western theology by St Augustine almost a few millennia ago, which Blatty presents with perfection). It is there to offer people an ironic monkey’s-paw-esque bargain to reveal their own weakness and hypocrisy…yeh? Believer isn’t just terrible film, and not just a terrible sequel to a remarkable film; it is the lazy desecration of a cinematic theological legacy.

The original gave a gorgeous visual commentary on the human spirit remaining resilient in the face of evil as the absolute negation of ‘what is’.

To name the overarching source of my incandescence, it is this question: What is the demonic doing in this film? What is it achieving? The original Exorcist is clear – Fr Merrin (the eponymous exorcist) explains that the possession of a child is intended as random, purely nihilistic, awful chaos that grinds down the resolve of righteous. It has no point, no substance – it is genuine ‘evil’, nothingness collapsing in on itself. In Believer the demon seems to be wanting to make a social commentary on parenting…maybe? At the start of the film the voodoo-blessed mother is caught in a building collapse after a Haitian earthquake, and as she lies dying in a makeshift hospital the father is presented with a terrible choice: the surgeon can only save one or the other, mother or baby. SPOILER – he may have a daughter, but he didn’t choose her. There’s another girl who is something of a free spirit with parents who are very light touch. One father didn’t want his daughter, the other doesn’t seem to be too bothered about his daughter having structure…you know? Parents, children, the sins of the father…you know?

The great climax has the demon(s) presenting the assembled non-exorcists with a choice. Fathers – choose your daughter and she’ll live, first come, first served. One father recognises the immorality, the pointless and annihilating ‘evil’, of letting a girl die, the other doesn’t. He’s been pretty much a non-entity throughout the film, has no real understanding of what is going on, is about as psychologically traumatised as it is possible to be, and is presented with the opportunity to save his daughter…of course he makes the wrong choice…because this is a ‘clever film’…The demon reveals the girl who was chosen will die. TWIST. Didn’t see that coming – admittedly this film is so stupid I didn’t see anything coming. Why? Why let one girl live? Why is this demon – this figure of total and destructive evil – teaching the people a lesson about self-sacrifice and never being willing to sacrifice an innocent? Is the demon making an important point? WHAT IS GOING ON!? Well, the mistakes of Heretic are being repeated, but this is a point for the cognoscenti…

The original gave a gorgeous visual commentary on the human spirit remaining resilient in the face of evil as the absolute negation of ‘what is’; it ends with a broken man finding his faith and his redemption in a Christ-like act of self-sacrifice (Fr Karras – the junior exorcist – takes the demon into himself and commits suicide). There is, in this final act, a moving and absolute statement on the indomitability of creation (and humanity as the pinnacle of creation) as that which God has willed into being and continues to will ‘to be’. We are here! We are loved! We are to be redeemed! We cannot be seduced by the lie that decay and dissolution and destruction and nothingness is our ultimate destiny. Believer has people stumbling by accident to a conclusion that says nothing about God, or the devil, or heaven, or hell, or faith, or doubt, or family, OR GOOD AND EVIL, or anything serious.

I despise this film. I pray to God the other two films in the proposed trilogy do not get made. They probably will…maybe that’s not the end of the world. Maybe the inevitable sequels will, in the very fact of their being filmed and released, be a better exposition of the reality of banal and destructive evil, which seeks to find the beauty of ‘what is’ and tarnish it, than their actual stories. Maybe…

Star rating? At the sight of this film the stars themselves hid…

Review

Culture

Death & life

Film & TV

Trauma

14 February 2025

5 min read

Bridget Jones: a brilliant mess of a movie

A fresh expression of lost, stolen, love.

Yaroslav Walker

Yaroslav is Vicar of Christ Church, Hampstead.

A couple sit on outdoor seats, her resting her head on his shoulder.

Working Title Films.

I cannot overstate how low my expectations were going into this film. I love the first Bridget Jones, a classic of the (specifically British) romcom genre. The two sequels were tedious retreads, and the idea of number four in the series elicited the opposite of delight. I went to see Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy out of parochial duty – many of the film’s beautiful exterior shots were filmed in my parish, at the church school and the surrounding streets. I wanted to ‘represent the parish’ and show some local pride. I wasn’t alone; I saw many faces I recognised from the school gates, and I ended up sitting next to a parishioner. Thank goodness cinemas are dark!

You’ll understand by the end of the review.

The film opens on Bridget, rather disorganised and dishevelled in just the manner we’ve grown to love, getting ready for a night out while also preparing dinner for her children. She and Mark Darcy now have two children, and the house looks like a cyclone has passed through. She calls Daniel Cleaver, who engages in some raunchy chat, and then insists he’s on his way. Oh no! Have she and Darcy divorced? Has that bounder and cad Cleaver wormed his way back in?

Cleaver arrives at her home…to babysit!?

Bridget hurries off to her dinner, and as she approaches her host’s front door she smiles. Darcy is walking towards her from the other end of the street. They meet at the door and lovingly complement each other’s appearance. They ring the bell. The door opens. Bridget in standing there. Alone.

Bridget is a widow and a single mother. Her children are adorable, but hard work. She hasn’t worked properly since Mark died. She is both overwhelmed and yet also numb. She has no life or purpose outside of the chaos of her home. Her friends – especially her gynaecologist – encourage her to re-invent and re-emerge. Go back to work, go back to socialising, go back to dating.

This is the first five/ten minutes of the film and sets the scene.

To begin with the positive. The script is very funny. The direction is competent and even throws in a few unexpected and moving tableaux. The cast are on fire! Renée Zellweger could sleepwalk this role, scrunching her eyes in that endearing way on command. Leo Woodall is smouldering and hunky as the young lover, and Chiwetel Ejiofor is pure charisma and chemistry as the new science teacher Mr. Wallaker. Emma Thompson chews the scenery and delivers the best jokes as Bridget’s gynaecologist. The standout is Hugh Grant, who has immeasurable fun turning the roguish lothario Cleaver into the wittiest silver-fox we’ve seen on screen for many a year. He is at the peak of his career, and it is a joy to watch.

But…

None of it really hangs together. There is no real plot; there are little comedy sketches and episodes that jump from one to the other – never entirely unrelated, but never entirely coherent.

This is a film of many subplots. The subplot of Bridget and the mums at the school gate. The subplot of Bridget getting back to work. The subplot of Bridget smoothing the rough edges off Mr Wallaker (who uses a whistle like a weapon). The subplot of Daniel, of her friends from the first film, of her parents, and so on and so on.

There is the subplot of Bridget developing a new, modern, Tinder romance with a hunky Hampstead Heath ‘ranger’ (the ‘boy’ of the title). It could be argued this is the main subplot: Bridget finding new confidence and a new lease of life via a summer romance with a handsome younger stranger. It is also the most forgettable. It’s shallow, and is really only an excuse to make updated references to the original film.

The film is a mess.

And yet…

I cried. I cried more than once, and proper tears. Thank goodness cinemas are dark, because no priest wants their parishioners to see them blubbing, especially while watching a Bridget Jones sequel! This mess of a film has a single strand that runs through it, gives shape to its episodic nature, and turns it from an ‘okay’ film into a brilliant film.

Grief.

Bridget is grieving Darcy. Her children are grieving their father. Cleaver is grieving the life he could have had – so committed to debauchery was he, that he has no one permanent in his life (except Bridget) and he hasn’t spoken to his son for nearly two decades. She and her friends are grieving the passing of the years, and the reality that they are 25 years older. Through the raunch, and crude jokes, and slapstick set-pieces, this film surprised me by being a slow-burn meditation on grief. I won’t say too much more about the film because – and I can’t believe I’m saying this about a Bridget Jones film – this film really does need to be experienced fresh.

This is a welcome supplement and corrective to the Valentine season: an exploration of love that is lost or stolen away, and is sorely missed. It is a life-affirming bit of cinema, that takes you through the stages of grief (there is even a scene where her friends debate just how many stages there are) and the various methods we have for dealing with them. It even includes a clumsy little science/faith debate, and yet manages to conclude by encompassing all views.

The film has a truly pastoral message. Grief cannot be avoided. Grief is a sign that love was real, and also that love cannot be snuffed out…even by death. Bridget intermittently has visions of Mark, and by the end of the film she has managed to make peace with those visions. They won’t leave her – her love for Mark won’t leave her – even as she experiences new love. Bridget ends the film recognising that her grief won’t leave her…and she can still live the fullest and happiest life possible.

Go see it. It’s good to have a cry sometimes.

4.5 stars

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