MovieChat Forums > Calvary (2014) Discussion > What was the meaning of this scene?

What was the meaning of this scene?

posted 9 years ago by IllusiveCitizen
45 replies | jump to latest

One of the ending scenes where Fiona Lavelle (Father James's daughter) meets the killer in jail?

[–] Zangara 9 years ago

Forgiveness?

Yes, that was my same thought when I saw the scene. Father James tells his daughter, Fiona, that more attention needs to be paid to forgiveness by members of the church, during their last scene together. I'm fairly certain she has gone to visit the killer in prison to tell him she forgives him, because that is what her father would have wanted.

[–] spookyrat1 9 years ago

The last conversation we see James and Fiona having, was agreeing that virtues such as forgiveness are not highlighted in church doctrines, as much as the varieties of sins.🐭

[–] bholland2014 9 years ago

I got the sense that Fiona was trying to hold back a smile. My initial fleeting thought was that this wounded, suicidal girl has some sort of affinity for the man who killed her father. Then, I recalled the very last dialogue she and her father had. I now feel that the smile she was holding back was a reaction to her own surprise that she actually forgives this man. I'm really pleased to find that others' share similar thoughts about this scene.

[–] bholland2014 9 years ago

[–] brett-bayne 9 years ago

I can't believe none of you get the ending. At the finale, Fiona visits the killer in jail. He was obviously her lover, and SHE put him up to the murder, having blamed her dad for abandoning her. Chris O'Dowd's character dispatched Father James for driving Fiona to attempt suicide. And now Fiona is meeting with him in jail to thank him. This also explains who killed Father James' dog—SHE slit its throat. I hope this helps clarify the "ambiguous" ending.

[–] Zangara 9 years ago

No. None of that is true.

[–] sherlockzz 9 years ago

Except I think she killed the dog.

[–] UsernameAttempt-3 9 years ago

No. Just no.

[–] politicaldefiance 9 years ago

I read that, at the premiere, the director hinted at Dr. Hate being the killer. Apparently he's got a bandage on his hand in the epilogue.

[–] politicaldefiance 9 years ago

Ugh, auto correct on my phone is annoying. That should say Dr. Harte instead of Hate.

[–] tentimesthree 9 years ago

Actually, I think you got it right the first time.

[–] cjhawk1 9 years ago

That is ridiculous! You're joking, right?

[–] brett-bayne 9 years ago

Right.

[–] leobourne 9 years ago

Elaborate where you got this, because I didn't notice a bit on this except that she's forgiving his killer. And him for leaving her alone.

[–] setarehjuventina 9 years ago

If this is true, why was Jack so surprised to see her?

[–] zolazona 9 years ago

You are having fun here.

[–] Nicknacktralala 9 years ago

NO! You got it all wrong!!

She visits him to forgive the killer, the last thing she learns from her dad. Even though that because of his fault she ends up with another dead parent.

[–] stitch_groover 9 years ago

I can believe no one gets THAT ending, because it's not very likely. The major theme of the film is "forgiveness"... and that's what Fiona does. She forgives her father's killer.

As for who killed Bruno - the barman.

What are you? Some kind of sex wiccan?

[–] Gabe1972 9 years ago

I don't know if I've ever read a conclusion about a film that was as incorrect as this.

If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure. - George W. Bush

[–] sturmtiger00 8 years ago

LOL. That's almost as funny as this thread -- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0374102/board/nest/94841588

[–] brettster 8 years ago

Thanks for being able to ID a joke when you see one.

[–] MoviemanCin 8 years ago

No, Brett. You are completely wrong.

Schrodinger's cat walks into a bar, and / or doesn't.

[–] bostonmaggie 8 years ago

Lol! What movie were you watching?

[–] leishayoung 9 years ago

In the last conversation he and his daughter have over the phone before his death she asks him what virtue he hopes for the most and he answers 'forgiveness'because he knows that forgiveness is the key to the town's problems and perhaps the world's problems.

His daughter therefore forgives her father's killer, she fulfills her father's wishes and takes the first step towards mending both people's lives.

Forgiveness is the key to your unhappiness.

[–] dayviewing 9 years ago

Yes, this. She goes to give forgiveness to her father's killer, for herself and for him.

[–] theb1927 9 years ago

I took it as an ambiguous ending, letting the audience decide whether Fiona will forgive the killer or if her tears are coming from her inability to forgive him. I am starting to lean towards the latter possibility, although there is a simplistic beauty to the first option as well.

[–] leishayoung 9 years ago

Never thought about it that way. Interesting take on it.

[–] eonbluedan-1 9 years ago

Come on! The film is so well executed you could surely HEAR the next line of dialogue?

"I forgive you"

Watch again.

[–] DeepCinema 9 years ago

O, I definitely took the scene to mean that her father (Father)'s spirit had resurrected in Fiona's heart and she was carrying on his work by enacting his favorite virtue: forgiveness.

Which infuriated me because the guy in jail was driven to murder by an insensitive and complicit organization who didn't give a fig about the damage done him. But now HE'S the villain and the poor, lovable priest the victim. {{{ UGH }}}

Also, as a woman, Fiona is such a diminished figure compared with her Dad (Da') since, dispite any measure of virtue, she can never be a priest(ess) in that sexist, patriarchal hierarchy.

[–] 9 years ago

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[–] missf-h-baker 9 years ago

Yes, and the quote about the two thieves at the beginning.

I was starting to feel very lonely about my interpretation.

Thank you.

[–] 9 years ago

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[–] puirt-a-beul 9 years ago

Which infuriated me because the guy in jail was driven to murder by an insensitive and complicit organization who didn't give a fig about the damage done him. But now HE'S the villain and the poor, lovable priest the victim. {{{ UGH }}}

Also, as a woman, Fiona is such a diminished figure compared with her Dad (Da') since, dispite any measure of virtue, she can never be a priest(ess) in that sexist, patriarchal hierarchy.

I honestly think that's your own stuff that you're bringing to the film, DC.

Jack wasn't a villain; he was a hopelessly broken man of very limited internal resources and without the self-belief to mount an effective response to his plight, who therefore had to settle for a destructive one of senseless (but understandable) anger. In my response to the film, I felt that even as he pulled the trigger and saw what he had done, he knew it wasn't going to bring him anything but more pain, and that made him tragic. The final scene, where he hung back in the shadows when he saw who had come to visit him, firmly dispelled for me any possibility that we were to think of him as a villain.

And I'm not so sure about Father James being loveable. Nobody around him in his day-to-day seemed to find him so. I would say the most common responses to him were contempt and derision. He was someone very human, trying to be something other.

And I disagree that Fiona was diminished at all. She was the one in the story with the strongest lifeforce and the broadest view. At the end, she rose above the mechanism the others were all stuck in and went to see Jack. She could achieve something that none of the clerics in the film were capable of, not least because she wasn't part of the rotten system of dodging and collusion that had abandoned Jack to his fate.

You might very well think that. I couldn't possibly comment.

[–] DeepCinema 9 years ago

Thanks for your thoughtful response.

re: Jack ~ What would you suggest would be "an effective response to his plight"? Right there, you're blaming his going to extremes on his limited resources, when there is no way an individual can expect clean, decent and swift response from the RCC in this matter. Threats and bribes, yes. Support, only when pushed to it.

Jack's hanging back in the shadows only reinforced his sense of guilt to my eyes.

Fr. James may have not been lovable to the motley crew of his parish, but I believe the audience rooted for him.

I saw Fiona acting as her father's daughter, resurrecting his spirit and acting on his belief that forgiveness is most significant. Before that she seemed wounded and marginalized, not someone of a strong life-force and broad view.

I like your perspective that Jack saw the futility of his dark deed as it was done. Hope that was true...

Thanks again, always grateful for cordial exchange when opinions differ.

[–] puirt-a-beul 9 years ago

Likewise, DC. 

I wasn't blaming Jack at all, merely observing his limitations. I think his vision of his own redemption was very narrow, in that he had no conception of what might constitute healing for himself and so was limited to striking out. And that's not least because of the intractability of the institution that is the RCC, plus its sense of untouchability in the culture. I'm not blaming Jack for any of that, and I do think it makes him a tragic character rather than a villain.

Jack's hanging back in the shadows only reinforced his sense of guilt to my eyes.

He baulked at speaking to Fiona -- understandably, given what he'd done. But I also felt great sadness in the thought that he probably didn't want to be forgiven, because that would invalidate his response to what he'd been through. In some contexts, forgiveness can be an incredibly disempowering and even patronising act.

Before that she seemed wounded and marginalized, not someone of a strong life-force and broad view.

Yes she was -- who in the film wasn't wounded?!  We may not have heard all their stories, but they were all lepers of one kind or another (to continue the Biblical allusion). But I felt (subjective opinion!) that Fiona had the most life-affirming response, even though she wasn't overtly successful at life.

Anyway. Thanks to you, too, for the positive and considerate response to my own thoughts. I've read several of your posts in various threads on this film, and I hear where you're coming from (I too have had some experience in work with trauma, and I also know something personally about struggling to swim in the wake of abuse). I don't discount anything you've had to say, and genuinely admire your passion, but I do tend to feel your expectations are perhaps too big for this film. It's not the one you seem to want to see made, and never really set out to be.

You might very well think that. I couldn't possibly comment.

[–] setarehjuventina 9 years ago

I think your interpretation of the priest is not entirely correct. I think the charachters represent the disciples and he Jesus...so I think them not loving him is not a reflection upon him. I'm not entirely sure, but my reading of it.

[–] puirt-a-beul 9 years ago

Fair enough.

For my own part, I really don't think the film is saying that the priest *is* Jesus; I think it's what he's trying to be. When he's threatened with death, he sees his remaining week in the light of Jesus' last week, and the question then becomes -- answerable only by each of us individually -- whether he succeeds or not. It raised a strong degree of anger and sadness in me, but that's my own response to what I see as the church's delusions and hypocrisy, and how it chews up the lives of people like the priest, using them as cannon fodder in a war of pretence.

You might very well think that. I couldn't possibly comment.

[–] setarehjuventina 9 years ago

It was certainly up for interpretation this movie :)

I didn't think it was him being Jesus but everything being an allegory.

[–] zolazona 9 years ago

The priest was never "lovable". He didn't operate under a cloak of dogma and told the truth bluntly. The others were directing all their anger at the church and were raging at their own personal inability to lead happy lives (with or without the church). He was likable to me because it seemed as though he would always strive to tell the truth. He did even at the end, not even attempting to come up with a story about him crying over the abuse of children. Even with a gun pointed at him. I remember being VERY angry over all the scandals but I didn't shed tears. How was the priest to answer him?

Ha ha! When did Fiona express a wish to be a priest or even remain a Catholic for that matter? She was 'diminished" because she could not figure out how to live a life with joy. Her mother's death and her father's abandonment had thrown her for a loop.

So we should all be viewed as representatives of an organization, country or church and not real people with our own individual morals, feelings and integrity? That is dangerous thinking. Methinks of terrorism. The other priest represented the church more closely, but even he should not have been murdered for the misguided failings of a crazed person.

[–] gch525 7 years ago

Uh, right. I think you are spot on. No personal vendettas in that comment.

[–] 9 years ago

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