Review
Review Date: 23-June-02
Spoiler Rating: Low
Juju Judgment: Juicy
The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys (2002)
While there's nothing in "The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys" that I had not seen before, it's a well made picture that held my interest, got me thinking, and, ultimately, struck a nerve. Ostensibly a story about adolescence, it is also (to me anyway, and I think about this stuff a lot) a story about symbols and imagination, and about how modern Christianity does not provide nearly enough, or the right quality, of either.
The film, set in the 1970s, depicts a few memorable weeks in the lives of Francis (Emile Hirsch) and Tim (Kieran Culkin), best friends, Catholic schoolmates, and, yes, altar boys, who spend a good part of their time getting into trouble. Tim, the leader, is the wilder of the two, your standard troubled youth whose acerbic tongue and penchant for committing mischief disguises a sensitive heart. (Don't get me wrong, as stock characters go, this is one of my favorites.) The handsome, wide-eyed Francis is a fledgling artist who, with the help of Tim and two other cronies, maintains a comic-strip epic called "The Atomic Trinity," in which the boys envision their superhero alter-egos battling the Satanic incarnation of their pious schoolteacher, Sister Assumpta (Jodie Foster). Francis also has a budding romance with Margie (Jena Malone), a sweet, quiet classmate with a dangerous secret of her own.
The acting is uniformly terrific (with the minor exception of Foster's now-you-hear-it, now-you-don't Irish accent), and the story is nicely embellished with animated sequences depicting parallel events from Francis' "Atomic Trinity" universe. It is here, in fact, that the movie's spiritual heart resides. Several times we see the boys called to task by Sister Assumpta, whose reaction to poor manners, lewdness, and petty crimes is entirely rooted in her Christian faith. To her mind, the boys' misbehavior is caused by their disrespect for the church and their distance from God, not by the natural ebullience of youth or a reaction to the circumstances in their own lives. She doesn't admonish them to grow up or consider other people's feelings; she begs them to contemplate the martyrdom of ancient saints and to pray for the reformation of their souls. "I fear for you," she tells Francis and Tim, and she means it. And this is exactly why she doesn't get through to them.
As the events in the movie show, Sister Assumpta is wrong in thinking that these boys have lost the ability to appreciate the beauties of kindness, decency, sacrifice, and non-carnal love. They simply don't find these ideals in what her church has to offer. In their world, parents don't necessarily love each other, much less their neighbors, and horrible confessions come from the mouths of babes. They are of an era when innocence is impossible, the future looks more important than the past, and repression is no longer a recognized goal. So they create their own spiritual world of the "Atomic Trinity," where they can satisfy their inherent desire to battle evil, fight for love, and give their lives for each other. Instead of Christ, they have enormous muscle-bound heroes; instead of the cross and the rosary, they have a mysterious pearl and sword that must be reunited to bring peace to the world. It may be just kid stuff, but it's laden with meaning.
In "The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys," the symbols of the Catholic church are rejected for more modern, personal fare, and nobody's soul is irretrievably lost in the process. Virgin martyrs may have had their day, but comic books and superheroes make just as much sense now as anything else.
Copyright © 2002 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.
