Stigmata movie review & film summary (1999)
It is also not possible, according to leading church authorities, to catch the stigmata from a rosary. It is not a germ or a virus. It comes from within. If it didn't, you could cut up Padre Pio's bath towels and start your own blood drive. "Stigmata" does not know, or care, about the theology involved, and thus becomes peculiarly heretical by confusing the effects of being possessed by Jesus and by Beelzebub.
Meanwhile, back at the Vatican, the emotionally constipated Cardinal Houseman (Jonathan Pryce) rigidly opposes any notion that either the statue or Frankie actually bleeds. It's all a conspiracy, we learn, to suppress the gospel written in Christ's words. The film, a storehouse of absurd theology, has the gall to end with one of those "factual" title cards, in which we learn that the "Gospel of St. Thomas," said to be in Christ's words, was denounced by the Vatican in 1945 as a "heresy." That doesn't mean it wouldn't be out in paperback if there were a market for it. It does mean the filmmakers have a shaky understanding of the difference between a heresy and a fake.
Does the film have redeeming moments? A few. Arquette is vulnerable and touching in an impossible role. I liked the idea of placing her character within a working-class world; there's a scene where a customer in the beauty shop resists having her hair treated by a woman with bleeding wrists. And Nia Long has fun with the role of Frankie's best friend; when your pal starts bleeding and hallucinating, it's obviously time for her to get out of the house and hit the clubs.
"Stigmata" has generated outrage in some Catholic circles. I don't know why. It provides a valuable recruiting service by suggesting to the masses that the church is the place to go for real miracles and supernatural manifestations. It is difficult to imagine this story involving a Unitarian. First get them in the door. Then start them on the Catechism.
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