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Monk Dawson (1997)

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Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

Based on a Piers Paul Read novel about a defrocked monk's progress along the Via Dolorosa of trendy '70s Cheyne Walk, this sets up high expectations it's unable to satisfy. Michie's portrayal of the idealistic Benedictine Eddie Dawson is technically proficient, expressing well the man's vulnerability and angry, hurt consternation when he's expelled from the order for sheltering an unmarried mother. But as Dawson throws himself into the self-seeking cauldron of London society, reduced to hack journalism for a venal tabloid supremo (Kemp) in order to support an unwise marriage, Michie can't find the depth required to make palpable the complex feelings of alienation Dawson experiences, as he drowns in a sea of betrayal, broken ideals and misplaced affection. There's little at fault in the screenplay, and the cinematography lights the bleak Northumberland moors as effectively as the restaurants and houses of London SW3. But as a moral 'entertainment', the film has no enlightening core.

Author: WH

Time Out Film Guide

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greenwych said...

Posted on Nov 02 2011 14:14 I this or isnt it based on a real person--is there a disclaimer in the book, is it fiction or based on somebody real?

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james said...

Posted on Aug 15 2011 23:17 Far better than the review makes clear, I found this is a very powerful film. I think the reviewer misses the fact that at the end of the film, the monk has returned to the church and re-established his bond with God, in his retreat in seclusion - which is what he had lost and which led him to the pleasures and distress involved in living the material life in London, in that stretch of the film where he is without faith. As the film clearly suggests - it is voiced by a key character at the end - the film has shown a clash between 2 worlds, as the monk falls from his original calling, into the very material ordinary life (which is where he has affairs, a bad marriage etc) and finally gets redemption when his faith returns again at the end once he has returned to being a priest. And as the film clearly suggests - again it is voiced by that character at the end, some people are just not born to lead certain kinds of life; as we have seen so vividly in the passage of the film, the priest was, ultimately, just not cut out for the ordinary material life he got involved with (it gave him some happiness but ultimately cut him to pieces). The priest, we see, is just not cut out for life on the earthly plane like his best friend throughout the film - a best friend from school - is. It is a tragic and very moving film. I think the reviewer has, then, missed the 'enlightening message' of the film entirely (or seems to have done) and in saying that the actor doesn't convey the complexity of reactions he would have after he has lost his faith and moved to London, I think he is missing what is largely an 'understated' performance at that point in the film. There was a moment where I also thought that, but it only lasted for a moment; 90 percent of the time, I thought the actor was simply being quite understated, and reflecting how the character of the priest really has just become like an ordinary person, untroubled by his past, as he becomes involved in affairs. So I think the reviewer is nitpicking on that point. Overall, a powerful film well worth seeing.

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