Film Screening: Cavalry (2014)

Speakers): Samuel Gibson

“Despair not, one of the thieves was spared; presume not, one of the thieves was not.” Thus opens writer/director John Michael McDonagh's darkly comic exploration of the nature of forgiveness and community in a post-Catholic Ireland.  A man ostensibly offering Father James Lavelle (Brendan Gleeson) his confession explicitly describes his sexual abuse at the hands of a priest years earlier, and outlines his plan for revenge: he intends to kill a “good priest” in exactly a week. He means for that good priest to be Father James, and invites him to a beach to meet his Maker. Eschewing the authorities, Father James instead spends his final days tending to his flock of perverse parishioners in the west coast remote of Country Siglo.  

This film is part of the DLCL Spring 2015 Film Series, "Bitter Laughter." Take a look at this series' complete list of films.