User reviews

This short film is an awful adaption of Father John MacNamee's excellent non-fiction book, Diary of a City Priest. In the film, Father MacNamee is shown conversing with various saints who appear to him in visions, making him seem like a schizophrenic, which he is not. Furthermore, the film ignores Father MacNamee's struggles with the Catholic Church, including his refusal to serve as a strike breaker during a Catholic School teachers' strike, a decision which resulted in his being exiled from the Cathedral where he worked to an inner city parish. Do yourself a favor, read the book, ignore the movie.

The first time I watched it seemed slow. I thought it was professionally done, and David Morse, as always, was solid.

The second time around it was simply moving. It's worth the effort to slow yourself down, and empathize with David Morse's character.

David Morse captures without overstatement the persona of a dedicated priest who follows his calling to serve in an inner city community parish. There is no sugarcoating the frustration and sorrow he must embrace in order to love and serve people on the distant frontier between urban poverty and mainstream America. The portraits of the priest, his parish staff, and his parishioners are so true to life that the director must know this scene first hand. No attempt is made to beatify the priest or to create artificial and unrealistic tales of triumph and redemption among his parishioners, and consequently the viewer's experiences of both tragedy and hope arise from what feels like the substratum of true human experience.