'Stigmata' is the ultimate example of a film with "dumb audience syndrome" (the
cinematic disease that affects us by discouraging deep thinking - also known as
"spoon feeding"). There are examples on examples of familiar film concepts we
should be bored with by now: the older priest acting as the younger priest's
mentor and saying cryptic, elderly-ish things; the Italian women who hoot at
Father Andrew (Byrne) as he walks by; the overwhelming "big sister" worry from
Donna (Long), Frankie's best friend - the list goes on and on.

I didn't like or sympathize with a single one of the characters, or their plights.
Patricia Arquette is downright bad as the annoyingly one-dimensional Frankie,
shouting almost all of her lines like she was Elizabeth Berkeley in 'Showgirls'. She
shifts tones all too quickly, changing the mood of the film. She's not the only one.
Gabriel Byrne and Jonathan Pryce are both hamming it up, proud to be wearing
their collars. Each play smart men who continuously do dimwitted things. Byrne
is tempted by Arquette, who attempts to seduce him (as herself or as her alter
ego?) in a terrible showing of bad chemistry and casual demoralization. Pryce
was the head of the "Gospel Commission" and is covering up his tracks because
he thought an ancient document would contradict the way he runs his church.
(His particular congregation or the whole Catholic church? The film is never
clear). This theme is so general, the viewer is left to wonder why the film is
wasting time adding this to the already heavy load of unresolved conflicts among
the main characters.

The script is as messy as they come. Even on paper, someone should have
recognized that not does this film contain too many low-rent Exorcistesque
sequences, but everything the film addresses seems insincere, tacked on and some
of doesn't make any kind of sense whatsoever. I wondered about the significance
of at least half a dozen things, but none more than the presence of evil in the film.
The movie is about a girl with the stigmata wounds (which have to do with
Christ), who writes and speaks the language of Christ and finally, discovers
something, also to do with Christ. Where in the film was there a presence of evil
that she would turn into a demon and an exorcism would be necessary? Why are
the repetitious close-ups of certain objects that appear in so many key scenes left
unexplained? Why would a film that could have interesting subject matter shoot
itself in the foot every time it gets remotely interesting?

On a technical level, the film exists as an MTV playroom (directed by a veteran
music video maker) spliced with a Jerry Bruckheimer-esque set of images. The
film constantly shifts it's tone and it's mood from Rock N' Roll to slow and back,
which would be admirable if well done - as is, it's jarring, disorienting and
irritating. The movie has way too many close-ups - it looks as if it were cropped
from a widescreen composition for the big screen. These constant close-ups aren't
of any value and end up showing off a truckload of errors in continuity. If you've
made mistakes, why show them off?

Then there's other big questions, like: If Frankie cuts hair, why does she live in
such a luxurious apartment? Why does it always rain? Why, when she causes car
crashes, is there never any repercussions? Why is everything Frankie does in her
apartment have to be a big production ? (reading some books requires candles
and make-up) Why does the film add "based on a true story" epilogues to a film
that feels too fake even to pass for fiction? Why does the film need to keep
repeating the same dialogue, gospels and formulaic themes at wading pool depth?

'Stigmata', as a body of work, is drained of it's lifeblood. The director, the
screenwriters and the actors have made damn sure to refuel it with a blood we've
seen a million times in every horror movie on the shelf. There is not a single
redeeming factor in 'Stigmata', except, maybe that it gives the Catholic church a
good, hard poke in the belly. But no one, not even those of us with no use for the
organized hierarchy of Christianity, could possibly take serious this forgettable
tripe. Down goes the only one of it's deliverances, sliding through the cracks like
so much fake movie blood, trickling from the Hollywood machine into the
multiplex, where the brain-dead can worship it's inferiority.