I loved Dogma! Great performance by Salma Hayek... yum yum..
Posted on 01/09/2005 5:35:10 AM PST by grundle
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050106/REVIEWS/501060302
Virgin
No MPAA rating
*** (3 stars out of 4)
BY ROGER EBERT
January 7, 2005
Jessie Reynolds is not the kind of girl who gets nice things written under her picture in the high school yearbook. She's probably never going to graduate, for one thing. When we see her for the first time in "Virgin," she's trying to talk a stranger into buying some booze for her, and when he does, he gets a kiss.
Jessie is not bad, precisely. It would be more fair to say she is lost, and a little dim. She clearly feels left behind, even left out, by her family. Her sister Katie (Stephanie Gatchet) is pretty, popular, and a track star who dedicates her victories to Jesus. Her parents (Robin Wright Penn and Peter Garety) are fundamentalists, strict and unforgiving. Jessie doesn't measure up and doesn't even seem to be trying.
There is, however, someone she would like to impress: Shane (Charles Socarides), a boy at school. She wanders off from a dance with him, is drunk, is given a date-rape pill, is raped and wakes up with no memory of the event. When she discovers she is pregnant, there is only one possible explanation in her mind: There has been an immaculate conception, and she will give birth to the baby Jesus.
Jessie is played by Elisabeth Moss, from "West Wing," as a girl both endearing and maddening. Her near-bliss seems a little heavily laid on, under the circumstances, but director Deborah Kampmeier has ways of suggesting it's the real thing. Whether or not there is a God has nothing to do with whether or not we believe he is speaking to us, and although in this case there's every reason to believe God has not impregnated Jessie, there's every reason for Jessie to think so. Among other things, it certainly trumps the religiosity of her parents and sister.
Fundamentalists almost always appear in American movies for the purpose of being closed-minded, rigid and sanctimonious. Anyone with any religion at all, for that matter, tends to be suspect (the priest in "Million Dollar Baby" is the first good priest I can remember in a film in a long time). Movies can't seem to deal with faith as a positive element in an admirable life, and the only religions taken seriously by Hollywood are the kinds promoted in stores that also sell incense and tarot decks. So it's refreshing to see the Robin Wright Penn character allowed to unbend in "Virgin," to become less rigid and more of an empathetic mother, who intuitively senses that although Jessie may be deluded, she is sincere.
There has of course been a great wrong committed here, but it would be cruel for Jessie to learn of that fact. How sad to believe you are bearing the Christ child and then be told, no, you got drunk and were raped. Better, perhaps, to let Jessie bear the child and find out gradually that like all children it displays divinity primarily in the eyes of its mother.
But Kampmeier is up to something a little more ambitious here. She uses visual strategies to suggest that Jessie, in the grip of her conviction, enters a state that is just as spiritual as if its cause were not so sad. The performance by Moss invests Jessie with a kind of zealous hope that is touching: Here is a slutty loser touched by the divine, and transformed. What has happened to her is more real than the miracles hailed on Sundays by results-oriented preachers.
The more you consider the theological undertones of "Virgin," the more radical it becomes. Must you be the mother of God to experience the benefits of thinking that you are? Can those from a conventional religious background deal with your ecstasy?
There is a wonderful recent novel named The Annunciation of Francesca Dunn, by Janis Hallowell, a friend of mine, that tells of a waitress in Boulder, Colo., who a homeless man becomes convinced is the Virgin Mary. The novel explores a little more poetically and explicitly than "Virgin" the experience of being blindsided by an unsolicited spiritual epiphany.
Both works are fascinating because in mainstream society, there are only two positions on such matters: Either you believe, or you do not (and therefore either you are saved, or you don't care). Is it not possible that faith is its own reward, apart from any need for it to be connected with reality? I am unreasonably stimulated by works that leave me theologically stranded like that. They're much more interesting than works that, one way or the other, think they know.
Theological footnote: Every once in a while my Catholic grade school education sounds a dogma alarm. Jessie is not a Catholic, which perhaps explains why she thinks the term "immaculate conception" refers to the birth of Jesus, when in fact it refers to the birth of Mary.
Ebert thought Fahrenheit 911 was a documentary too.
Ebert also thought "Dogma" was respectful and thoughtful.
It sounds very interesting.
I remember the movie Footloose, with Kevin Bacon, and John Lithgow. It seems it took John Lithgow, who is the un-bending fundementalist pastor, to become more human to understand the plight of his daughter, which I thought was backwards.
Ebert's column on Dogma:"Kevin Smith has made a movie that reflects the spirit in which many Catholics regard their church. He has positioned his comedy on the balance line between theological rigidity and secular reality, which is where so many Catholics find themselves. He deals with eternal questions in terms of flawed characters who live now, today, in an imperfect world.
Those whose approach to religion is spiritual will have little trouble with "Dogma," because they will understand the characters as imperfect, sincere, clumsy seekers trying to do the right thing. "
"Dogma" featured Allanis Morissette as a sexed-up, drug-addled God, who had simply gotten bored and quit making people die, causing all sorts of havoc. I had actually liked Kevin Smith's "Clerks," so I'm no shirking prude, but "Dogma" was just simply crass and offensive.
bump
Good morning, Northern.
I'll wait for a freeper review because I don't trust Hollyweird's reviews of anything. They are so out of touch with mainstream Americans and glorify people who should more rightly be condemned.
I can't even remember which movie he was reviewing or what he said but I distinctly recall thinking that ebert was a "skunk" after one review.
I thinked you watched a different "Dogma", as God was neither 'sexed-up', 'drug-addled' nor had 'gotten bored and quit making people die'. Watch it again some time
You know, on deeper consideration, this piece really demonstrates what an intellectual boar Ebert really is. Ebert practices no faith at all, yet he has the balls to assert that he can tell those who do practice their religion when the practice of their religion is spiritual. He, in effect, says, "You succeed in the practice of your faith when you agree with my tastes, even though I don't practice my religion at all."
On one level, I've sort of admired Ebert. He has chosen his ethics over the demands of his many would-be bosses many times. On another level, that's what makes him so pathetic: he always presumes his uninformed opinion is that of God's.
I loved Dogma! Great performance by Salma Hayek... yum yum..
I think he is confusing the role of Alanis Morissette with Salma Hayek. Describing Alanis as 'sexed-up' is just plain wrong.
I agree.
Good morning there, darlin'!
"Clerks" was funny. "Dogma" was garbage.
IMHO, that is.
(((Northern)))
Selma Hayek did good work in the film. And good for Kevin Smith to get her. He always seems to cast above his station, if that makes any sense.
>>I thinked you watched a different "Dogma", as God was neither 'sexed-up', 'drug-addled' nor had 'gotten bored and quit making people die'.<<
Perhaps I should word myself more carefully. Smith's god behaved like a sexed-up, drug-addled 70's groupie. The movie did not explicitly show Smith's god sucking a roach or getting banged.
But try this professional synopsis, and I think my point is made pretty well:
"Two mischievous angels (Matt Damon and Ben Affleck) who were kicked out of heaven, have figured out a way to get back in. Restoring ones soul by entering a new church is a part of the Catholic Dogma, and by restoring their souls, the angels could reenter heaven thus revealing a loophole. But their plan would prove God's imperfection thus erasing everything God had ever created. Jesus' last descendant (Fiorentino) is enlisted by Rufus (Chris Rock), the unknown 13th Apostle to stop the fugitive angels. Along the way, she is aided by two prophets, Jay and Silent Bob."
"Jessie is not a Catholic, which perhaps explains why she thinks the term "immaculate conception" refers to the birth of Jesus, when in fact it refers to the birth of Mary."
This is, no doubt, an error on the part of the screenwriter, not the character.
But God also loves Ski Ball, while in the form of an old man, and if that's a groupie, leave me out of me music business.
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