“SAINT RALPH” (2004)

Starring: Adam Butcher, Campbell Scott, Gordon Pinsent, Jennifer Tilly
& Shauna MacDonald
Written & Directed by Michael McGowan

Polly Staffle Rating: ***

People can do unthinkable things when they're backed into a corner with no foreseeable way out. Sometimes there are negative results with horribly evil actions. But the desperation can also be positive with creative outputs and miraculous events. “Saint Ralph” focuses on the positive.

This is a story about believing when no one else does. Everyone needs something to believe in no matter what it is. Work, religion, love, education, a dream - if it gives you a purpose and helps you get out of bed each day, it is worth believing in. Ralph Walker, played by Adam Butcher in his screen debut, believes in miracles. Not just that they exist, but that it is possible to make them happen.

Ralph is a fourteen-year old ninth grader and alone in the world. His mother is sick in the hospital. His father is dead, as are his grandparents. He lives by himself and attends Catholic school where he is an outsider, who is constantly bullied and in trouble. He has one friend.

When his mother slips into a coma, he doesn't want to lose her. He desperately needs her. When he is told it would take a miracle to pull her from her slumber, he decides to make one happen.

As part of a punishment for getting caught pleasuring himself while spying on girls showering at the city pool, Ralph is forced to join the cross country team. It is the hope that he will burn up some of his excess energy by running. When the cross country coach, Father Hibbert, makes a crack that they don't have many months to train for the Boston Marathon, Ralph wonders if the whole team gets to go. The coach responds that he was only joking and that it would take a miracle for someone on the team to win such an event. So Ralph gets it in his head he's going to do just that and doing so will pull his mother out of the coma.

Anyone can make a miracle happen, he learns in school. As long as the person believes, is pure and prays. Being pure is extremely hard for Ralph. For starters he is a male. He also has a huge crush on a female friend Claire (Tamara Hope), who wants to be a nun. He also can't help but stare at any and every person of the opposite sex, including his mother’s nurse Alice (Jennifer Tilly). He often “self abuses” himself more than 20 times a week. He has trouble with the praying part as well. He asks others for helps and most think he is delusional. When he tells Father Fitzpatrick that God appeared to him in a vision dressed as Santa Claus, Fitzpatrick calls him blasphemous and wants him to put an end to his quest. He is told rubbing his knees with sand paper and soaking them in alcohol might help with his praying, so he tries it. Nothing seems to help. When word gets out about Ralph's goal, it becomes the joke of his school and town. No one believes in him. He doesn't even believe in himself.

Ralph reluctantly gives up his smoking habit and trains to win the Boston Marathon. He feels it is the only chance he has. He has no choice but to believe making it happen is possible.

After Hibbert, a former successful runner, sees how hard the young man is training, he decides to take Ralph under his wing as long as he stops talking about miracles. But that's what drives him and he doesn't stop. Father Fitzpatrick threatens to kick Ralph and Hibbert both out of school unless the nonsense ends. They don't listen and Ralph ends up running in the marathon.

I will not disclose what happens. But I will say I loved every frame of this movie, until it had about five or six minutes left. The humor is good; the acting is solid; the writing is great; the music fits perfectly and best of all no scene last longer than it needs to. However, the end hurts the film. Everyone, including Fitzpatrick rallies around Ralph and we even get a clap scene straight out of “Hoosiers.” The ending doesn't destroy the film, it just could have been stronger.

Instead of talking about what happens, I'll tell you what I wanted to happen and how I would have ended it. I wanted to see Ralph win the marathon and then have his mother die. This would have extremely upset Ralph. He would feel cheated. Ralph would be so angry he would act out violently. We would feel his pain. Our hearts would be ripped out and stomped on. It would be the movie everyone claimed “Million Dollar Baby” was. A story of triumph over all the odds to find out even when you win, you can also lose. Maybe it would be a bit depressing, but it would be a great modern tragedy.

“Saint Ralph” doesn't do that, but it's not quite as cheesy as most sports films and heart warmers out there. It did go way beyond my expectations. Written and directed by 1985 Detroit Marathon winner Michael McGowan, “Saint Ralph” has to be one of the best PG-13 movies I've seen in a long time and is easily one of the better films I've seen this year.

Recommendations

“RADIO” (2003)
“OCTOBER SKY” (1999)
“SIMON BIRCH” (1998)

- CCF, February 2006