It’s Not Just the Profanity, It’s the Writing

Cringy Flaws In “Father Stu”—(That Didn’t Stop ETWN’s Father Mark Mary From Loving the Movie a Lot)

At this writing, the movie, “Father Stu,” is still in theaters almost a month after its release the week before Easter, on April 13. The intent of this late review is to provide an alternate perspective on the film, which is in contrast to the way many Catholic reviewers have responded to it. And I want to end with a surprising-to-me enthusiastic response from Father Mark Mary, a priest who is a EWTN TV personality, who overlooked the things about the movie that bothered me a lot—because of its positive portrayal of the priesthood and of the saving value of suffering.

Even though its theatrical run is probably almost over, although it will probably be streamed for years to come, questions about the suitability of the things I found problematical about the movie will live on past the end of the movie’s run.

“Father Stu: A Flawed Story of Redemption,” by Austin Ruse at Ricochet.Com, is the only article I’ve found that echoes many of my own reactions after I saw the movie during its second week after release. I’ve embedded my own responses to the movie among some relevant quotes from Austin Ruse’s review below.

After Ruse writes how much he hated the movie from the beginning, several times, he elaborates, "Father Stu is the unlikely story of a foul-mouthed, drunken ruffian who finds God through a woman and becomes the most unlikely of priests. What hit me sideways were two things: first, the relentless vulgarity; second, how badly much of it was written." Ruse complains about the "dialogue that does not have the feel of reality but rather of a Hollywood screenwriter, and not a very good one at that." But then Ruse relents somewhat towards the end of the review, where he writes, “I hated this movie until the end when it kind of made sense.”

For his reasons, read the review.

What I want to concentrate on is the crimes against good taste the screenplay commits along the way to the denouement and on what the portrayal seems to me to lack at the end.

Does this Movie Portend a New Trend with Movies that Portray Faith Positively?

In interviews, Mark Wahlberg has expressed his hope that this movie will be the first of many similar films about the Faith to be produced by major studios.

It would be great if Hollywood would start releasing cleverly written, well-plotted and well-shot Catholic films with intriguing plots again. And I hope they will. Sad to say, I don’t believe this one will help much to launch the desired trend. For one thing it wasn’t produced by a major studio. Wahlberg funded it himself, as Mel Gibson funded The Passion of the Christ. Sad to say, Father Stu is not doing nearly as well at the box office.

Today, May 10, I looked at the figures here. Although I don’t know enough to expertly interpret what they mean in the big scheme of things, I’ve seen the financials called lackluster. Maybe a lackluster $19,384,393 since it opened April 13 may be enough to bring in a decent return on investment and encourage funding for more of the same. But maybe not. The fact it is listed as #18 of the Top 2022 Movies at the Domestic Box Office doesn’t look too shabby. I didn’t expect it to have this much staying power; it is still playing in my local theaters as I write this on May 10, almost a month later.

The Screenwriter/Director and the Genesis of the Script

In an interview with Raymond Arroyo on EWTN.com, Wahlberg said they loved Father Stu’s conversion story, but they couldn't find a screenwriter whose treatment they liked. So they asked Gibson’s young mistress and mother of his ninth child, screenwriter Rosalind Ross to give it a try. Wahlberg said they loved her script when they got it and wouldn't change a thing. Then they decided to give her a shot at directing the movie too.

Gibson, Ross, and Wahlberg

I understood they did change it a bit, actually, trimming the f-bombs and other profanities from close to 200 at one point (after improvisations added to the script), to a still-distressing 100. I’m with Father Roger Landry, who said in a National Catholic Register review titled “Is Foul Language Necessary to Share the Faith Credibly?,” writers don't need to show sinful behavior to convince audiences of a character's sinfulness.

Besides, to be true to life, they could have had the Stu character in the movie swear off (so to speak) profanity, as he actually did. He kept a swear jar in his room in the nursing home after his disease weakened him, and he demanded payment to the jar if any of the many people who came to him for counseling or confession used profanity in his presence. If Father Stu was still around, Rosalind Ross, the writer, and those who spoke the lines she wrote in the movie would owe his swear jar big time.

About the Cinematography

Either the cinematographer was inept, or they were aiming for a kind of jerky out of focus dark effect in the filming. Whatever the reason, the picture was not clear, and most of the time I was merely enduring the clouded action and the sometimes unintelligible dialogue from the screen. My friend who watched it with me said it was obvious from the cinematography it was Ross’ first movie. I told her I had to believe the unfocused effects were intentional. Since Ross was supported by so many Hollywood experts, I couldn’t believe they would. have let inept filming pass. But then, as my friend suggested, maybe it’s just that the projector in Cinelux Almaden San Jose is defective . . ..

Profanity and Blasphemy Alert

By the time this first outrageous scene I’m going to tell you about came along the night I saw “Father Stu,” I'd seen so much of the publicity that I knew where the plot was going, and so I was a bit bored, just waiting for it to end.

When Stu first has a meaningless bizarre off-color conversation with a drunk woman at a bar followed by a bit of a bar brawl, I thought, “Ho hum. That is simply dumb.” Then this cringy scene with a man who looks creepily like Charlie Manson comes along. I’ll let Ruse describe it.

"At one point, Wahlberg . . . falls into a conversation with a hippy-looking guy—turns out he is Jesus. Wahlberg looks him up and down and says, 'I’d f*** you up if you weren’t f***ed up already.'

"Jesus says, 'Someone beat you to it.' Get it?

"Jesus tells the Wahlberg character, 'Life’s going to give you a gut full of reasons to be angry, kid. You only need one to be grateful.'

"Wahlberg says, 'That’s the most f***d ratio since the number of marshmallows in Lucky Charms.’"

"There is more. In the scene where he is talking to Jesus, Wahlberg says, 'You want to have a big d*** contest, bro?’

"Jesus says, ' know how big your d*** is, son.’”

More Absurdity with a Side of Beefcake Alert

And then there's another scene, which finally made me mentally write off the scriptwriter for good, because of how it interjects a totally gratuitous beefcake shot. Admittedly, hunky men with bare chests are common in religious movies. Hollywood has been capitalizing on shots of buff men’s chests since the first Bible epic. In this movie, the first beefcake shot comes during character Stu’s amateur boxing match, which makes sense in its context. Then a totally uncalled for shot in “Father Stu” comes during his character Stu's baptism.

Ruse writes, "When it comes time to get baptized, in Church, Wahlberg slowly pulls off his shirt. Yes, he pulls off his shirt, in Church…to get baptized. The camera pans lovingly over Wahlberg’s pumped-up frame, he leans down and gets baptized."

In this screen snap from the movie’s trailer, the cinematic Stu Long disrobes for his Baptism. The figure to the left of Stu in this characteristically murky scene is the priest who is about to perform the Baptism.

The camera pans to Carmen, whose eyes dilate, and it is surely not a coincidence that in a not-too-distant mercifully brief scene later in the movie previously chaste Carmen initiates sex with Stu.

This reminded me unpleasantly of a Berkeley Shakespeare Company production of Richard III I saw once where for shock value Richard was anointed on his bared humped back and for titillation his queen was anointed on her bared breasts.

Pandering is the only word I can think of for this kind of uncalled for manipulation of the emotions of the audience.

Spoiler Alert

The part of the movie where Stu becomes a changed man and an inspiration to others has moved many who have praised the movie, but to my mind it is not developed well enough. After Stu is truly converted, breaks off with Carmen and breaks her heart, attends seminary, and then is crippled from a fatal incurable muscle disease, (it all happens fairly quickly), another ludicrous scene occurs in a church.

Stu has been refused ordination at the end of his seminary studies because the Church will not usually ordain men who aren't capable of performing their priestly duties, so he is taken home and cared for by his parents, who reconcile. One day, his mother and father dress him up and wheel him to the car and start driving him to church. When he sees Carmen waiting there in a white dress, he protests because he thinks they are planning to marry him to her. But no, something even more unlikely occurs. The bishop has relented, and Stu is going to be ordained. By surprise. In a parish church. Bishops ordain priests. But there’s no bishop in sight.

As Ruse’s review mentions, there's not much Catholic literacy in sight in this movie.

And by the way, this is a photo from Stu’s actual Baptism that I found posted in the combox under Ruse’s review, from a friend who was there. Even though it is blurry, you can tell Stu was wearing a nicely buttoned up white shirt.

Stu Long’s actual Baptism

As composer Jeffrey Quick commented after reading an earlier version of this review:

“The film is better at portraying the ugliness of sin than the beauty of holiness.”

And Yet Father Mark from EWTN’s “Life on the Rock” Simply Loved It

On the other hand, Father Mark Mary, MFVA (Missionary of the Eternal Word), was able to get past the profanity and what some of us see as bad writing, and he received the film with gratitude—because he was so delighted that a Hollywood movie actually talks about grace and what Jesus did by dying for us on the cross!

In an hour long special edition of the “Life on the Rock” show that he hosts on Eternal Word Television Network, Father Mark talked with Mark Wahlberg; Rosalind Ross; Father Bart Tollefson, Stuart Long’s priest friend who was ordained with Father Stu; Father Marke Lennehan, Father Stu’s vocation director at the seminary, and with Father Stu’s father and his sister.

Here is some of what Father Mark Mary said about the “Father Stu” movie during his show:

“I want to say from the beginning it’s not a movie for the entire family. It’s got some rough language and some rough humor. But it’s showing a conversion story of a man who became a priest. What he had to say about suffering and the cross. God used him to bring so many closer to God, the transformation of a soul.”

Father Mark did not find the profanity and off-color humor an obstacle, “The script’s witty. It’s got humor in it. It’s humor for adults.”

Towards the end of the show he says. “I did think the confessional scenes were shown with some respect even thought you got a difficult penitent in one of the scenes . . . I like the way they show the priest. He handles it pastorally. And I like the way they wrote theology in it.

“This idea about suffering and just simple Christianity. Jesus died on the Cross for us for the forgiveness of sins. We are called to imitate Him, we’re called to love others. They make the point in the movie you can’t do that of your own strength. That is great theology to have in a beautiful film.”

What do you think about the profanity or surreal plot twists? Would these aspects of the movie (or if you saw “Father Stu,” did these things) put you off? Does what pleased Father Mark so much—that “Hollywood is saying something about the faith that is so positive and strong,”—please you too?