Al Pacino tests credibility as a priestly exorcist in this horror outing

The Age

2 days ago

THE RITUAL ★ ½
(MA) 98 minutes
Exorcism movies are as much rituals as the exorcisms themselves, rarely intended to teach us anything new. The writer-director David Midell settles for going through the motions in his lacklustre The Ritual, the only real novelty being the presence of Al Pacino as the exorcist, despite the potential of the subject matter, a 'real' case that occurred in an Iowa nunnery in 1928 and was written up in Time a few years on.
'Real' has been put in quotation marks for obvious reasons, and in theory the film leaves the question open: the exorcism was real, but whether any demons were expelled is for the viewer to decide.
For dramatic purposes Midell skews the balance in favour of belief, presenting Father Joseph Steiger (Dan Stevens), the film's representative of sceptical reason, as a weakling unable to face the truth confronting him.
In any case, the film's claim to historical accuracy is not to be taken too seriously. Emma Schmidt, the possessed woman who is brought to the nunnery, is played by 27-year-old Abigail Cowen, although the real Schmidt was 46 at the time.
I can only suppose this has been done for commercial reasons, meaning someone has decided that on balance the audience would prefer to see a younger woman tied to a bed while she writhes, sweats and makes guttural noises.
The tying-down happens a fair way into the film, after the matter has been debated at length by Steiger, in his capacity as the parish priest, and Father Theophilus Riesinger, the elderly German-American exorcist played by Pacino, whose judgement is vindicated at every turn.
Less prominently featured is the Mother Superior (Patricia Heaton), who complains at one point about a lifetime spent obeying the orders of men, a nod to feminism which under the circumstances is less than convincing.
Nor does the film convincingly feel as if it's taking place in the US Midwest in the 1920s. The handheld camerawork is somewhat jarring in a period piece, but the bigger problem is that none of the actors seem to belong. Cowen is up for what's required of her physically, but lacks a character to play other than 'woman possessed by demons'.