'Deliver Us,' Close-Up Study Man of the Year' Is Comic Mess, 'Infamous' Serves Thin Capote; An Inexpert 'Driving Lessons', by Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal, October 13, 2006

'Deliver Us,' Close-Up Study
'Man of the Year' Is Comic Mess, 'Infamous' Serves Thin Capote; An Inexpert 'Driving Lessons'

By Joe Morgenstern
Wall Street Journal
October 13, 2006

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB116069482555991270.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

In "Deliver Us From Evil," a literally stunning documentary by Amy Berg, a former priest and convicted pedophile, Oliver O'Grady, faces the camera and confesses his sins in bland, lilting tones that betray a continued befuddlement with his wayward self. Confession may have been good for his soul, but for no one else's. The spectacle of Mr. O'Grady's obtuseness is horrifying in the context the film provides -- two decades of compulsive, systematic and pitiless predations that went unchecked, though not unnoticed by the church, during his priesthood in Northern California.

In another context -- our current concern with inappropriate sexual behavior in government, and with strengthening safeguards for potential young victims -- the documentary is instructive as well as timely. Split off from the consequences of his actions, Mr. O'Grady, who spent seven years in prison, admits that he did bad things, and claims he "should have been removed, and attended to." But he neither acknowledges nor seems to comprehend that he shattered his victims' lives. "I'm here," he says, speaking of his presence as an interview subject, "because in my life there has been a major imbalance."

The euphemism is eerie, to say the least, for his imbalance was the rape of dozens of children, including a 9-month-old infant. Invincibly narcissistic, he still wonders why he wanted to "reach out" to children, and, having framed his behavior in self-serving language, draws a self-serving conclusion: "I guess I was overly affectionate. I guess I went a little too far." Asked if he'd ever been diagnosed with a dissociative disorder, he replies blithely: "I'm sure I've been diagnosed with lots of disorders."

That last question comes not in the extended -- and grimly fascinating -- interview conducted expressly for the film, but in a video deposition that Mr. O'Grady gave in 1997. The occasion was a trial, in Stockton, Calif., prompted by an ultimately successful civil suit against the local diocese and its bishop for failing to protect children from a priest -- Father O'Grady -- with a history of molestation.

From top, Monsignor James Cain, former priest Oliver O'Grady, and Cardinal Roger Mahony giving deposition testimony.

"Deliver Us From Evil" conveys a vivid sense of that history. Ms. Berg, previously an award-winning documentary producer for CBS and CNN, has a reporter's instinct for an important story, and the enterprise to go with it. She sought out Mr. O'Grady, who now lives in Ireland on a pension from the church, and persuaded him to talk on camera. (I wish the film, which has no narration, had made that clear.)

In addition, she has drawn a troubling picture of the priest's superiors -- particularly Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, who was the bishop in Stockton in 1997 -- protecting Father O'Grady and, of course, themselves, rather than any children, by moving him from parish to parish in spite of ever-more urgent warnings and complaints. In a 2004 video deposition related to civil trials in Los Angeles, Cardinal Mahony says he hardly knew Father O'Grady, even though the film shows warmly personal passages from letters evidently exchanged by the two men. (The Cardinal also says, in the same deposition, that sexual urges toward a 9-year-old would not be an automatic cause for removing a priest from his ministry.)

Documentary filmmakers are a breed apart, devoted to their craft in spite of an inexorably shrinking market for feature-length documentaries -- at least those lacking cute kids or adorable penguins. Amy Berg's debut feature may well find a wider audience. It's already in the news; last week an assistant district attorney in Los Angeles was quoted by the New York Times as saying that the film would "fuel ongoing consideration as to whether Cardinal Mahony and others engaged in criminal activity."

"Deliver Us From Evil" has its flaws. Certain passages are diffuse, others are argumentative, and there's a discomfiting staginess to the climax, which follows two of Father O'Grady's victims as they journey to the Vatican to deliver a letter to the pope. Yet the film's concern for the victims, and their families, is one of its strengths. One victim, now a grown woman, says she still pulls off the road and dry-heaves whenever she sees a Plymouth Duster like the car Father O'Grady drove. Another victim's father, an American of Japanese ancestry, cries out with inconsolable anguish: "He was raping her, not molesting her! He was raping her. Five years old, but that's what he did." So much for Oliver O'Grady's maunderings about reaching out to little children in the spirit of love.

'Man of the Year'

"Man of The Year" was written and directed by Barry Levinson, who directed the witty, politically astute "Wag the Dog." This one amounts to Toss Off the Tale. A few observations about the hollowness of party politics, plus Robin Williams doing lots of funny shtick as a Jon Stewart-like comic running for president, have been thrown together with low regard for logic or consistent tone. The result is a mess -- sometimes an entertaining mess, but mostly a movie that makes a perfunctory mockery of the mockery currently passing for political discourse.

Too bad, because the script's organizing notions are intriguing. What would happen if a candidate for the highest office in the land were funny and spontaneous, rather than standardized and robotized? (The candidate here, Tom Dobbs, falls somewhere between Warren Beatty's "Bulworth" and Mr. Williams's "Patch Adams.") And what would happen if that candidate's chances were enhanced by a fateful glitch in the nation's newfangled electronic voting machines? Don't look to "Man of the Year" for wisdom on these counts. The film doesn't know what to make of its own hero -- is he a demagogue, a truth-teller or an empty-headed sloganeer taking on empty suits? It doesn't even bother to invent a glitch of any complexity, let alone explain how it works. Laura Linney is the whistle-blower who discovers the glitch. Apparently no one explained to her that she was in a shallow farce with silly characters. She plays her role for all the ferocity it's worth, and damned if she isn't dazzling.

'Infamous'

"Infamous" covers much of the same territory as last year's "Capote," but with a different sensibility, and a less sophisticated one, even though the new film strains for a kind of café-society sophistication that was mercifully absent from its predecessor. The difference starts with the source material. "Capote" was based on a fundamentally serious, extensively researched biography. Douglas McGrath, who wrote and directed "Infamous," adapted his script from a George Plimpton book full of illuminating but often gossipy interviews. Mr. McGrath has emphasized the gossip quotient by using an intrusive device with a heavy hand: straight-to-the-camera interviews in which socialites and celebrities, played archly by actors, talk about the Capote they knew.

What's more, "Infamous" depicts quite shamelessly, with no factual basis, the relationship between Capote and the convicted killer Perry Smith as a flat-out, sex-in-prison, kissing-on-the-lips love affair, and Capote as, ultimately, a contemptible worm. Still, the film benefits from three splendid performances: Toby Jones as Capote, an aggressively gay elf exuding a tosspot charm; Sandra Bullock as Nelle Harper Lee, a novelist who uses spoken words with quiet precision, and Daniel Craig as Perry, a deluded monster who is nonetheless forthright and strong. Mr. Craig will soon be seen, of course, as the debonair James Bond in "Casino Royale." Now, that's sophistication.

'Driving Lessons'

Rupert Grint has been famously under-used in the Harry Potter films as Ron Weasley, Harry's red-headed mate. In "Driving Lessons," a debut feature by Jeremy Brock, he's used judiciously as Ben, the shy 17-year-old son of a passive English vicar and a religious, relentlessly jubilant mother bent on teaching him how to drive (Laura Linney again, trying gamely to find good fun in a badly written role.) Indeed, Ben is so withdrawn at first that he's accused of "social autism" by Evie, a retired actress who hires him to pass the summer as her assistant, then opens him up to life. She's played by Julie Walters, with anything but judiciousness -- her Evie is sharp-tongued, foul-mouthed and often endearing, though sometimes a bit of a trial. This coming-of-age movie, unlike Evie's sleek old Citroen wagon, is a clumsy contraption, but it's nice to see Rupert Grint coming out from under that colorful thatch, and coming, not a moment too soon, into an appealing pre-maturity.

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DVD TIP: Investigative documentaries are most frequently the province of TV, but occasionally a distinguished example of the genre will make it to the big screen. In "The Thin Blue Line" (1988) the filmmaker Errol Morris argued that an innocent man had been convicted for the murder of a Dallas police officer. Morris stirred controversy by using interspersing his film with stylized re-enactments, but he made a case that was both powerful and predictive. The convicted killer was given a new trial, and set free.