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Sensitive Portrayal of a Touchy Subject

Leo Woman | North Carolina | 03/10/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I missed this movie when it originally aired on HBO. When I found out it is still in print, I purchased it. I bought it from an independent seller through Amazon because it was cheaper, even when shipping was taken into account.

Basically, the plot is people find out one of the priests is a pedophile. The parents do not know what to do. Some of them come together and seek an attorney's advice. Blythe Danner's character only wants the Priest (David Strathairn) to leave the priesthood and have the church pay for her son's psychological care. The Catholic Church offers to pay a large sum of money but does not admit guilt and refuses to excommunicate the priest. Of course, Blythe Danner and Keith Carradine's family do not take the money. The other families are upset and think they are holding out for more money, which is not true. Blythe goes to the Archdioscese and makes her simple request known. The Church does not care. They go to court. Her family receives millions of dollars.

I believe this film is from the early 1990s and this case was one of the first to be made public before the Catholic Church Scandals became as bad as it did in the 2000s.

With that being said, the acting is superb. All the actors became the characters. David Strathairn made me think he was a pedophile for real. No wonder he was an Academy Award nominee ("Good Night and Good Luck"). Keith Carradine is good no matter what character he is portraying. If you watch "Criminal Minds" and saw his acting there, it was excellent. I think his talent was wasted on "Numb3rs." Blythe Danner was good and I could finally see her daughter's (Gwyneth Paltrow) resemblance to her. Gywneth is not as good of an actress as Blythe. David Faustino's brother (I forgot his name) gave an excellent performance and I wanted to cry for him. There were other well-known celebrities in the film as well.

I think everyone should see this. I think this should be shown in schools as part of sex education. Children need to know that just because an adult has power over you and says "this is our little secret" does not make it right. God does not want to rape you.

I hope this review encourages you to purchase this film. If not from Amazon, then from someone else."