THE EXORCISM OF EMILY ROSE
Directed by: Scott Derrickson.
Produced by: Paul Harris Boardman, Beau Flynn, Gary Lucchesi, Tom Rosenberg & Tripp Vinson.
Written by: Paul Harris Boardman & Scott Derrickson.
Director of Photography: Tom Stern.
Edited by: Jeff Betancourt.
Music by: Christopher Young.
Released by: Screen Gems.
Country of Origin: USA. 114 min. Rated: PG-13.
With: Laura Linney, Tom Wilkinson, Jennifer Carpenter, Mary Beth Hurt, Campbell Scott & Shohreh Aghdashloo.

Intercutting between a melodramatic courtroom drama and a spiritually malignant frightfest, both parts work individually, but together they lend a sense of irrelevance to the other. Nineteen-year-old Emily Rose (Jennifer Carpenter) believes she has been possessed after an ominous near-death experience in her college dorm room. Once she begins to literally see demons, the family priest, Father Moore (Tom Wilkinson), is called in to perform an exorcism. He makes Emily stop taking her medication, prescribed by her doctors for treating epilepsy. Within a few days she is dead. The resulting trial focuses on whether the priest is responsible for Emily's death or if the medication, as Father Moore argues, prevented his exorcism from being successful.

The courtroom scenes are a roller coaster of intense set-ups followed by weak - or sometimes no - payoffs at all. Laura Linney (Kinsey) plays a defense attorney with a history of helping criminals get away with murder. Her inner turmoil is hinted at, but never given much serious attention. The film is constantly looking for a way to make her the central character, but she is overshadowed by "supporting" characters such as the Virgin Mary and the devil. A subplot centering on a doctor/witness to the exorcism does nothing other than take up screen time, and an odd cameo by Shohreh Aghdashloo (House of Sand and Fog) as an expert witness for the defense fails at taking the film in a different direction.

Carpenter and Wilkinson do what they can with characters that don't stray too far from the stereotypes created by The Exorcist, but the scenes revolving around Emily's possession are gratifying mainly because of their eerie look. Cinematographer Tom Stern is on a roll after Mystic River and last year's Million Dollar Baby. The Exorcism of Emily Rose has a number of vibrantly murky set designs, and the moment when Emily disappears into the mist of her backyard, it is as beautiful as anything in recent memory. Michael Belkewitch
September 9, 2005