Father Stu (2022)

Father Stu review by Mark McPherson - Cinema Paradiso

Father Stu is one of those films that is so stooped in Americana ignorance and brashness that you question just how much of it is meant to be condemned and how much of it is playing into the conservative boomer camp that wants to sneer at even the mildest form of progressiveness. The film’s central character has dreams of acting in Hollywood and his mother informs him that everyone in Hollywood is a bunch of disgusting communists. Absurd, yes, but how much of the target audience will read this scene more like the accurate concerns of a mother and not the narrow-minded view of middle Americans?

Yes, this film is based on a true story, but true stories do not exist as gifts by muses, where you are either not allowed to say anything more about the story or even imply there’s something more than just the facts. Director and screenwriter Rosalind Ross certainly want us to feel for Stuart Long (Mark Wahlberg), the boxer who wanted to become an actor but ended up becoming a priest while suffering from inclusion body myositis. Wahlberg naturally plays this character up with brashness but also a limited worldview that makes sympathies questionable. For example, when Stuart finds himself smitten with a woman he has just met at work, he tries to come on to her while working the meat counter at a supermarket. After failing to get her name, he decides to run after her, an action that is condemned by his boss but argued by Stuart as being an old-fashioned romance and something we used to have in this country. Get used to this kinda machismo chest-beating throughout the film.

Aiming to outdo Wahlberg in the limited worldview is Mel Gibson playing Stuart’s bitter divorced father. It should not come as a surprise that Gibson comes off as hostile, racist, and ableist, repeatedly using the phrase retarded. For context, this film takes place in the 1990s, and Gibson’s unlikable character is only observed in this manner because he is an atheist. His backward ways are treated more like character quirks without much questioning. By the third act of the film, it’s mostly bickering of men as Gibson and Wahlberg get angry and macho with each other, tacitly finding what little heart a cynical family can muster.

The highlight of the film is certainly the acting. As mentioned prior, Wahlberg and Gibson are built for these roles, considering their less than favorable reputations that would absolutely be glossed over this picture that lavishes on their backward ideals rather than admonish them. Their conversations with others feel real but not in a good way. They feel like characters in need of a firm slap of karma that even Stuart’s unfortunate health issues only feel like a mild push towards his spirituality. It’s also nice to see Malcolm McDowell as a religious authority, even though he seems to be in so many productions. He performs as well as he always does in a role that makes one question more of the legitimacy of the church more actively than Stuart’s faith.

Father Stu’s enjoyment depends on how much you love the come-to-Jesus type story mixed with montages, and tragedy, and are color-blind to the red flags of Middle American ideals. The only positive thing that can be said about the film was that it wasn’t a PureFlix production, which would’ve leaned even harder into the politics of Hollywood and the Christian spirituality being the key to everything. Although, it would certainly make the film more absurd and perhaps even more enjoyable than this routine ramble of a biopic.