User reviews

In another strong year for the international film category, Corpus Christi deserves its spot as a nominee. It's a slow burn film with religion and moral ambiguity at its heart, and even if the climax wasn't quite everything I was hoping for, the relentless tension up to that point was more than enough to make it a good movie. Daniel, the protagonist, is the engine for all the moral searching central to the movie. He wants to be a priest, but can't be one as an ex-convict, so he pretends to be someone else making it up as he goes along. He quickly realizes that he has a talent for it and that he has the ability to really affect people's lives. The whole time, there's the uneasy tension that this can't last, which ratchets up to full throttle when an old juvie friend comes by blackmailing him. While Daniel knows his days in the happy and impactful life he's been living are numbered, he still throws himself fully into the challenges of the town, particularly blame for a tragedy that left 7 people dead. The ending was harder for me to interpret - maybe the goal was to show that you can't run away from things forever, and no matter how much good you're doing those old ghosts will come back and you'll end up back where you started? The circularity of the plot, despite the spiritual experience Daniel has, is clear. Regardless, it's very well shot and developed as a story, and Bielenia is great as the lead.

Interesting enough drama involving religion and doing the right thing

The ending got you thinking though

"Corpus Christi" sounds on paper like it could be a screwball comedy: a young man recently paroled from juvenile detention becomes the substitute priest in a small town through a case of mistaken identity. The punchline is that he's really good at being a priest and the parishioners like him -- that is until his younger, more liberal attitudes and his experience as a troubled youth begin to rub them the wrong way when he wants them to heal the festering wounds that resulted from a town tragedy from the recent past.

This is not a comedy though, not even close. First of all, it's Polish. So that should tell you something right there. Secondly, there's not a laugh to be found in this somber story. I admired everything about this movie, but there was just some intangible ingredient missing that would otherwise allow me to recommend it enthusiastically. There's nothing wrong with it, but there's nothing great about it either.

The ending is shocking and bleak, and will probably leave people thinking. I'm still not sure how I feel about it.

Nominated for Best International Feature Film at the 2019 Academy Awards.

Grade: B+

There's a scene at the top of this film that really does make you wince - especially if you're a boy!! Thereafter, it's an engaging drama about "Daniel" (Bartosz Bielenia). He's at a juvenile detention centre where he helps out the priest with their masses and is keen on taking up the priesthood as a profession. Thing is, he's not detained for sticking chewing gum to a park bench so that avenue isn't likely to open up for him anytime soon. Parole beckons and he decides to assume the identity of a locum in a small community where his youthful vigour, enthusiasm and unorthodox methodology initially elicits a positive response from his new congregation. Gradually, though, he realises that this is a small town with a big demon - and reconciling both sides of their dispute is going to test all of his guile and wits whilst he has to remember he's no longer the guy he was. The arrival of an erstwhile "colleague" risks putting a fly in his now quite successful ointment though and he has to make some tough decisions of his own - voluntarily or otherwise. Bielenia is on good form here. He successfully marries the characteristics of the directionless thug with that of a man with a purpose, if not exactly a mission, well with an enthusiastic performance that could never be described as conformist. The narrative throws in a few questions about religiosity, forgiveness and a solid supporting cast contracts effectively the old and new lives of this man who might just have found his vocation - if only he can be left to escape his past. I didn't love the conclusion, but all in all this is a well told story of spirituality and decency that doesn't necessarily require a dog collar to inspire.

"The healing process of purging the caldron of anger, grief and guilt out of a handful of small-town parishioners pans out with step-by-step lucidity and the ultimate embrace of forgiveness and agape is a hard-won reward but Komasa rarely overreaches himself into making a schmaltzy or homily fest out of it, the film's forte is in its clear-eyed, committed presentation of a none-too-credible story, and piling on the obvious and the understated (the tantalizing sexual consummation, a blackmailing juvie belong to the former and the solemn Last Rites, a tacit love interest the latter), CORPUS CHRISTI roundly puts Komasa's name on the map as a filmmaker very nearly edging his artistic maturity, not to mention it has obtained an Oscar nomination against fierce competition."

read my full review on my blog: cinema omnivore, thanks

For over an hour the film is an absolute gem. But no self-respecting Catholic girl would seduce a priest (or who she thinks is a priest). The violent ending which also was obviously thrown in for commercial appeal serves no purpose other than to create a crazed zombie. Plus some deus ex machina inserts could have been handled differently, i.e., the snitch is not fully believable as presented, neither is the vicar's exit and return, nor the ease with which the hero convinces everyone that he is truly a priest. The film is best when it sticks to its spiritual themes and the acting is superb.