Priest (1994 Film) - Critical Reception

Critical Reception

Reviews for the film were mixed to average. Rotten Tomatoes rated the film with a 62% based on twenty-one critical responses. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times rated the film one star out of a possible four, calling the screenplay "shallow and exploitative." He added, "The movie argues that the hidebound and outdated rules of the church are responsible for some people (priests) not having sex although they should, while others (incestuous parents) can keep on having it although they shouldn't. For this movie to be described as a moral statement about anything other than the filmmaker's prejudices is beyond belief."

Peter Stack of the San Francisco Chronicle called it "an exceptional movie," "powerful drama," and "a curiously inspiring statement about faith and morality." He added, "This film is extraordinary for the themes it explores—sometimes with delicious humor—beyond the obvious . . . The movie becomes a fascinating glimpse at a vast subject—intolerance vs. understanding. There's some preachiness in Priest, and yet you go away feeling the embrace of something lovely and spiritual."

Gary Kamiya of The San Francisco Examiner observed, "After watching this film, you feel as if Martin Luther had hammered every one of his 95 theses onto various parts of your anatomy, using dull thumbtacks. And although Priest is not without intelligence, humor and pathos, in the end it's little more than a tendentious melodrama. One can sympathize with progressive politics . . . and still feel that director Antonia Bird and screenwriter Jimmy McGovern have made things much too easy for themselves . . . Priest is less a work of art than an Op-Ed piece; as such, whatever virtues it has exist in the sociological sphere, not the aesthetic."

Rita Kempley of The Washington Post said, "Part soap opera and part propaganda, this sometimes affecting drama presents a one-sided examination of the church's teachings on homosexuality and the celibacy of its clergy . . . Roache, a veteran of British stage and television, gives a stirring performance, which crests in the film's transcendent finale. Beautifully sustained by the actors and well directed by Bird, this last scene is an emotional epiphany for both the characters and the audience, all bathed in the balm of forgiveness."