Stigmata
USA 1999
Reviewed by Stephanie Zacharek
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
Pittsburgh, the present. Frankie Paige is a hairdresser who doesn't believe in God. After receiving a rosary in a package of Brazilian souvenirs, she begins spurting blood from wounds that have opened of their own accord which directly correspond with Christ's crucifixion wounds. Father Andrew Kiernan, who investigates religious phenomena, is sent from the Vatican to look at Frankie's symptoms. He dismisses them because she's an unbeliever, but he finds himself drawn in by her case.
Frankie's attacks worsen. Possessed by the spirit of a priest who died in the process of translating a newly discovered gospel, she begins writing texts in a language not used since Jesus' time. Kiernan fears Frankie's affliction will kill her, and the two begin to fall in love. When a power-hungry and corrupt cardinal realises Frankie may have some knowledge of the newly discovered gospel which the Church is trying to keep secret, he pulls Kiernan off the case. The cardinal and his henchmen abduct Frankie and try to kill her. Kiernan rescues her in the nick of time.
Review
The supernatural pseudo-mystical thriller Stigmata is something of a mess, a roughly chopped slaw of spiritual hokum and scaremongering ripped off directly from The Exorcist (1973). Director Rupert Wainwright's previous credits include music videos and commercials. This CV is written all over Stigmata, with its convulsive cutting and ubiquitous, meaningless close-ups. Huge chunks of the plot make no sense (particularly a demonic-possession subthread) and Patricia Arquette, generally a marvellous and graceful actress, gets lost in the movie's manic shuffle.
But for lapsed Catholics especially, Stigmata holds its share of perverse delights. Vehement in its distrust of the Catholic Church, it features demons and beasties and treacherous priesties, as well as lots of hyper-Catholic visuals like statues that cry tears of blood and fluttering flocks of doves that radiate out of thin air. Gabriel Byrne, playing a special-task-force priest, looks more soulful and sexier in cassock and clerical collar than he does in normal street clothes. He's like the Vatican James Bond, only his job is a hundred times harder: he's a babe magnet and he can't do a thing about it.
Arquette is too good an actress to throw away the whole movie. Her smile is pure delight, with the gentle surprise of those funny eye-teeth, and she and Byrne have some charming flirtatious scenes together. Otherwise, though, her Frankie has little to do but bleed profusely. And when the stigmata hits, it descends like a bad Warrant video, all furious cross-cutting and abrasive noise. We see spikes going through wrists; thorns pressing into tender flesh; and blood spurting, dripping, coagulating and doing just about everything blood can do - all set to jarring industrial clanking music. The effects move so quickly that you don't have much time to dwell on their grisliness, but they're still queasy-making and unpleasant, and only underscore Stigmata's shortcomings. Stigmata is lethargic and self-consciously edgy at the same time. Instead of being elegiac and creepy, it scrabbles for a false kind of downtown grittiness.
And when Wainwright tries to strike a more spiritual note, Stigmata just gets plain goofy: after her episodes, Frankie becomes bathed in ethereal light as Enya-like noodlings waft by on the soundtrack. Draped in a snowy bedsheet and holding a dove in her hand, she does a remarkable impersonation of St Francis of Assisi. Many mysteries in Stigmata remain unsolved: why is it constantly raining inside Frankie's apartment? Why does the spirit of a supposedly benevolent priest speak through her in a voice deeper than Barry White's? And can stigmata really be caught from contact with a rosary? If so, wouldn't a little ringworm medicine or an aspirin take care of it?
Stigmata is interesting only because it isn't really very nice. It refuses to genuflect before one of the world's great religions. It doesn't seem to care whom or even if it offends, which makes it naughty, florid fun for ex-Catholics of all stripes. But that doesn't make it any good. At least Byrne is allowed to bring some glamour to it, a little ecumenical savoir faire. If only they'd given him an Aston Martin DB5.
Credits
- Director
- Rupert Wainwright
- Producer
- Frank Mancuso Jr
- Screenplay
- Tom Lazarus
- Rick Ramage
- Story
- Tom Lazarus
- Director of Photography
- Jeffrey L. Kimball
- Editors
- Michael R. Miller
- Michael J. Duthie
- Production Designer
- Waldemar Kalinowski
- Music
- Billy Corgan
- Elia Cmiral
- ©Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Inc.
- Production Companies
- Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures presents an FGM Entertainment production
- Line Producer
- Vikki Williams
- Production Supervisors
- Mexico Unit:
- Anna Roth
- Italy Unit:
- Michele Colombo
- Production Co-ordinators
- Tracy L. Kettler
- Mexico Unit:
- Belinda Uriegas
- Production Manager
- Italy Unit:
- Antonio Bruno
- Unit Production Manager
- Perry Husman
- Unit Manager
- Italy Unit:
- Elisabetta Moretti
- Location Managers
- Scott Logan
- Mexico Unit:
- Gloria 'Pekas' Lozano
- 2nd Unit Director
- David Barrett
- Assistant Directors
- Benjamin Rosenberg
- Kristina Peterson
- Eric Fox Hays
- Terence Edwards
- Basil Grillo
- 2nd Unit:
- Mark Oppenheimer
- Mexico Unit:
- Miguel Lima
- Efren Del Moral
- Script Supervisors
- Jeanne Byrd Hall
- 2nd Unit:
- Nancy Friedman
- Casting
- Wendy Kurtzman
- Associate:
- Rita Vanderwaal
- Mexico Unit:
- Claudia Becker
- Voice:
- Barbara Harris
- Italy Unit Helicopter Cameraman
- Enrico Lucidi
- 2nd Unit Director of Photography
- Flemming Olsen
- Camera Operators
- Michael St. Hilaire
- David Crone
- Mexico Unit:
- Guillermo Rosas
- Steadicam Operator
- David Crone
- Visual Effects Editor
- Peter Elliot
- Visual Effects Supervisor
- Tim McGovern
- Visual Effects Producers
- Joan Collins Carey
- George Merkert
- Pre-visualization Inferno
- Sonja Burchard
- Visual Effects
- Dream Quest Images
- Visual Effects Producer:
- David McCullough
- Digital Co-ordinator:
- Kathryn Liotta-Couture
- Digital Effects Supervisor:
- Blaine Kennison
- Lead Compositor:
- Saki Mitchell
- Compositors:
- Brian Adams
- Rory Hinnen
- Cynthia Hyland
- Dave Lauer
- Frank Maurer
- Daniel Miller
- Tony Noel
- Jeff Olm
- Marc Scott
- Visual Effects Editor:
- Daniel Arkin
- Data Manager:
- Doug Sherman
- Special Effects
- Co-ordinator:
- Al DiSarro
- Foremen:
- Robert Graham
- John Bruce Robles
- Mexico Unit, Supervisor:
- Jesús 'Chucho' Durán
- Art Director
- Anthony Stabley
- Lead Set Designer
- Clint Durst
- Set Designers
- Maria Baker
- Peter Davidson
- Barry J. Lehrman
- Theodore Sharps
- Set Decorator
- Florence Fellman
- Costume Designer
- Louise Frogley
- Costume Supervisor
- Joyce Kogut
- Key Make-up
- Perri Sorel
- Make-up
- James MacKinnon
- Key Hairstylist
- Ron Scott
- Hairstylist
- Michael Reitz
- Make-up Effects Supervisor
- Ve Neill
- Prosthetic Make-up Effects
- Makeup and Monsters
- Key Designer:
- Brian Penikas
- Shop Foreman:
- Roy Ceballos
- Special Life Castings:
- Kevin Haney
- Sculptors:
- Greg Smith
- Jacobien van der Meer
- Mechanics:
- David Penikas
- Jimmy Hirahara
- Elvis Jones
- Mold Makers:
- Rich Mayberry
- Steve Newburn
- Thomas A. Steves
- Main Title Sequence Design
- Diane Van Ussel
- Monkeyshine
- Main Title Sequence Compositors
- Click 3X
- End Titles
- Hollywood Title
- Opticals
- Howard Anderson Co.
- Additional Music
- Mike Garson
- Orchestrations/Conductor
- Pete Anthony
- Additional Orchestrations
- Jon Kull
- William Stromberg
- Associate Music Supervisor
- Genevieve Thomas Colvin
- Executive Music Producer
- Budd Carr
- Music Editors
- Ken Karman
- Mike Flicker
- Stephen Lotwis
- Music Engineers
- Bjorn Thorsrud
- John Whynot
- Music Mixers
- Billy Corgan
- Bjorn Thorsrud
- John Whynot
- Programming
- Billy Corgan
- Bon Harris
- Soundtrack
- "Mary Mary (Stigmatic Mix)" by Nigel Hunter, Bruce Duncan, Anne Holden, Louise Watts, Paul Greco, Darren Hamer, Allen Whalley, Judith Abbott, performed by Chumbawamba; "Cosmic Angel" by Michael Heinkel, performed by B.A.T.I.K.; "Gramarye" by Shelby Tate, August Cinjun tate, Cedric Lemoyne, Jeffrey Cain thompson, Gregory Slay, performed by Remy Zero; "All Is Full of Love" by Björk Gudmundsdottir, performed by Björk; "Now Is the Time (The Crystal Method Y2Kaos Mix)" by Ken Jordan, Scott Kirkland, performed by The Crystal Method; "The Pretty Things Are Going to Hell" by David Bowie, Reeves Gabrels, performed by David Bowie; "Release" by Simon Emmerson, James McNally, Iarla O'Lionaird, Martin Russell, Sinéad O'Connor, performed by Afro Celt Sound System featuring Sinéad O'Connor; "Inertia Creeps" by Robert Del Naja, Grantley Marshall, Andrew Vowles, performed by Massive Attack; "Identity" by Billy Corgan, Mike Garson, performed by Natalie Imbruglia; "O Sacrum Convivium" performed by Oxford Camerata
- Production Sound Recorder
- David Kirschner
- Sound Mixer
- Mexico Unit:
- Fernando Cámara
- Re-recording Mixers
- Scott Millan
- Bob Beemer
- Dennis Sands
- Supervising Sound Editor
- Mark Mangini
- Supervising Dialogue Editor
- Curt Schulkey
- Sound Effects Editors
- George Simpson
- Richard L. Anderson
- Mike Chock
- ADR
- Recordist:
- Rick Canelli
- Mixers:
- Troy Porter
- Bryan Watkins
- Doc Kane
- Thomas J. O'Connell
- Bob Deschaine
- Greg Steele
- Charlene Richards
- Editors:
- Curt Schulkey
- Avram D. Gold
- Foley
- Artists:
- John B. Roesch
- Hilda Hodges
- Alyson Moore
- Recordist:
- Carolyn Tapp
- Mixer:
- Mary Jo Lang
- Editor:
- Donald Flick
- Technical Adviser
- Robert Visciglia
- Pre-visualization Consultant
- Bill Marmor
- Advisers
- Italian:
- Stephanie Carwin
- Aramaic:
- William Schniedewind
- Portuguese:
- Christine Nazareth
- Medical:
- Donna Duffy
- Doctor Frederick Beddingfield
- Religious:
- Kenneth Corr
- Douchan Gersi
- Reverend Eddie Siebert
- Stunt Co-ordinator
- David Barrett
- Animal Trainers
- Birds and Animals
- Cast
- Patricia Arquette
- Frankie Paige
- Gabriel Byrne
- Father Andrew Kiernan
- Jonathan Pryce
- Cardinal Daniel Houseman
- Nia Long
- Donna Chadway
- Enrico Colantoni
- Father Dario
- Dick Latessa
- Father Gianni Delmonico
- Thomas Kopache
- Father Durning
- Ann Cusack
- Doctor Reston
- Portia de Rossi
- Jennifer Kelliho
- Patrick Muldoon
- Steven
- Rade Sherbedgia
- Marion Petrocelli
- Shaun Toub
- doctor
- Tom Hodges
- nurse
- Lydia Hazan
- attending nurse
- Duke Moosekian
- Doctor Eckworth
- Valarie Trapp
- woman with a baby
- Kessia Kordelle
- Cheryl
- Frankie Thorn
- Donna's customer
- Mariah Nunn
- Sister Angela
- Tom Fahn
- MTA man
- Marilyn Pitzer
- homeless woman
- Jack Donner
- Father Paulo Alameida
- Richard Conti
- valet priest
- Mary Linda Phillips
- Sister Agnes
- Liz Cruz
- Faith Christopher
- waitresses
- Joe Ruffo
- Federico Scutti
- guards
- William Howell
- Kristopher Davis
- aerialists
- Devin Unruh
- flower boy
- Vera Yell
- Jennifer's costumer
- Mary Marshall
- nun
- Daniel Escalzo
- Michael P. Dearth
- Italian businessmen
- Mark Adair Rios
- Deacon
- Certificate
- 18
- Distributor
- United International Pictures (UK) Ltd
- 9,200 feet
- 102 minutes 14 seconds
- Digital DTS sound/DTS stereo
- Colour by
- DeLuxe
- Super 35 [2.35:1]