Father Stu (movie)

[heartlikealion]

I only recently heard of this film. I visited my dad Easter weekend and we like to go to the movies together if we can find something. I noticed this movie was playing and suggested it. We saw it yesterday afternoon. 

He had heard a lot about the film in advance so had his own idea of what it would entail. 

I did not think the movie was “bad” but I am a bit surprised at some of the fluffy reviews/comments lol 

It was rated R. I’d say mostly for language. A couple characters had accents (Father Stu, Mark Wahlberg) and I struggled to understand some of the dialogue because they didn’t always enunciate and/or used flowery language riddles with curse words. I was like wait what? I got the gist of it, though. If I watched at home I would use subtitles. 
 

Potential spoilers below: 

The script could have used some work, certain elements of the priest’s life were omitted or glossed over. 

Fine, he cusses but once he’s further along in his journey that really should have been curtailed. 

Anyone else see it? Thoughts? 

 

 

[LucyStoner]

I saw it last week.  

Biopics usually do have to omit some elements of the central figure’s life.  I think they omitted his college degree and work as a museum manager as a way to play up his rougher edges.  

The accent thing made zero sense to me.  The audio recordings of the priest do not sound like that at all.  Why Mark Wahlberg gave him that accent, I have no idea.  It was a strange choice IMO.  

Swearing is a stereotype about Catholics that is rooted in reality from what I have seen (cradle Catholic here) so the swearing not stopping when he converted?  No surprise from me.  Didn’t see it as an issue at all.  I’ve known a couple of priests who have a colorful manner of speaking.  It’s also shown that this is one way he connects to people in difficult situations (such as prisoners).  

The movie got some critical reviews from Catholic media sources, especially with respect to the choppy directing choices and goofs.  Even the less critical reviews made it clear that it’s not for little kids and that it’s rated R.  So I’m not sure what you mean by fluffy reviews.  It’s not all that common for a Catholic movie to be widely released in theaters so I would say some of the hype was probably excitement over that.  

[heartlikealion]

Spoilers ahead: 

the parents that reviews it on common sense media left high ratings and glowing comments. 

Bishop Barron did an interview — I watched about half. I was shocked at how praise worthy he made the film sound. He equated this guy at the bar with Jesus and if I recall correctly, even that guy cussed. 

my objections with the cursing was mostly he did it non stop in the confessional scenes. Ridiculous. 

the part of life omitted I was commenting on was time serving as a priest. They showed virtually none. He never celebrated Mass on camera, not a glimpse of him in vestments at the alter. And my dad commented there was no mention of the Knights of Columbus affiliation. The other comment he made was that the priest was a real bully in his past but that wasn’t really shown. They referred to him as a former gangster but all I actually saw was a man that drank and smoke and fights that took place in the boxing scenes. 

[heartlikealion]

I’m a cradle Catholic too and never heard a priest cuss to my recollection. If I have it wasn’t the f bomb every other word. I have been around more priests than I can count. 

[Catwoman]

1 hour ago, heartlikealion said:

I’m a cradle Catholic too and never heard a priest cuss to my recollection. If I have it wasn’t the f bomb every other word. I have been around more priests than I can count. 

Same here, and we had at least one priest, a Monsignor, and a Bishop at just about every family function, so I’m pretty sure that if they were prone to cursing, we would have heard it, particularly after a couple glasses of scotch. 😉 

I have never heard (until this thread) that Catholics curse more than people of other religions, and I haven’t personally seen any evidence of it, either.

[heartlikealion]

Now I will say in all fairness that people share different experiences etc. and many times I was around priests I was young or at a parish function so less likely to hear the language perhaps. In college my priest was a little less conservative than some of the others I’ve known probably. He offered Theology on Tap at various local bars for the college youth group. I don’t think I made it to any. He was catering to a college crowd of course. The church was next to the campus. I mostly just attended the free Sunday night dinners after Mass for the college students. 

[ktgrok]

1 hour ago, Catwoman said:

Same here, and we had at least one priest, a Monsignor, and a Bishop at just about every family function, so I’m pretty sure that if they were prone to cursing, we would have heard it, particularly after a couple glasses of scotch. 😉 

I have never heard (until this thread) that Catholics curse more than people of other religions, and I haven’t personally seen any evidence of it, either.

I think it may vary on region as well. I think it would be less common in the south where OP is, versus say, inner city of the north east or something. 

[Terabith]

You can be 100% godly and full of grace and good works and still cuss like a sailor. It has nothing to do with the quality of your character.  Probably means you shouldn’t take a job with kids but.  Shrug.  Not a huge thing.  

[heartlikealion]

7 minutes ago, Terabith said:

You can be 100% godly and full of grace and good works and still cuss like a sailor. It has nothing to do with the quality of your character.  Probably means you shouldn’t take a job with kids but.  Shrug.  Not a huge thing.  

The point I was making was since Catholics see cursing as a sin, you wouldn’t be doing that during a confession lol! 

[Terabith]

So, what sin is cursing breaking?  I could see an argument for taking the Lord’s name in vain being a sin, but that’s really more like swearing falsely on the name of God, I thought?

[heartlikealion]

1 hour ago, Terabith said:

So, what sin is cursing breaking?  I could see an argument for taking the Lord’s name in vain being a sin, but that’s really more like swearing falsely on the name of God, I thought?

That is a good question. I found this link: https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/am-i-really-not-allowed-to-cuss-or-swear and this video: 

At any rate it’s always been frowned upon (IMO) to use vulgar language in church. Not all the movie scenes are in church but the guy is still a representative of the Church so at the very least it seems unprofessional. That’s my opinion, anyway. 

[LucyStoner]

3 hours ago, ktgrok said:

I think it may vary on region as well. I think it would be less common in the south where OP is, versus say, inner city of the north east or something. 

While I’m sure there’s regional variations, I would guess a lot of it is class based.  

Someone who never swears would stand out as a little odd in my Catholic family.  

Jen Fulwiler’s comedy special on Amazon references this particular stereotype so I don’t think I randomly came to this conclusion.  I think she’s in Texas, where I was born.  Most of my Catholic family though is from Denver and further west of that.  

That said, when I watched the movie I didn’t hear f-bombs every other word or even in every scene.  I wasn’t counting, granted.  

[LucyStoner]

7 hours ago, heartlikealion said:

the part of life omitted I was commenting on was time serving as a priest. They showed virtually none. He never celebrated Mass on camera, not a glimpse of him in vestments at the alter. And my dad commented there was no mention of the Knights of Columbus affiliation. The other comment he made was that the priest was a real bully in his past but that wasn’t really shown. They referred to him as a former gangster but all I actually saw was a man that drank and smoke and fights that took place in the boxing scenes. 

He wasn’t a priest for very long at all.  He got sick in seminary and he only lived 7 years between his ordination and his death.  It’s my understanding that most of those years were spent in a nursing home because he needed significant daily care.  
 

I think if anything the movie *played up* the seedy impression of his life.  In real life, he obtained a college degree in English Lit while he was boxing as a young man.  He left boxing because of an injury, not when we was old/washed up.  Some of his last jobs before entering seminary were running a museum and teaching at a Catholic school while he discerned if he was really being called to the priesthood.  I think he had DUIs and he worked as a bartender at some point but I do not get the impression that he was “a gangster”.  

Here he is in his own words:

Priests definitely have smoked and drank, sometimes heavily.  When the seminary building near my home was converted to other uses after two decades of disuse, they found a mysterious sap oozing from the walls of the apartments used by the staff priests.  They sent it for testing🤣, IT WAS NICOTINE from the decades of heavy smoking by the priests who lived and worked there. 

Edited April 19, 2022 by LucyStoner

[teachermom2834]

So many many things are sins in the Catholic church but I don't think of swearing as one of them. Taking the Lord's name, for sure. But conventional four letter rude words? I never thought of them that way. Unseemly, for sure. No one would appreciate around the kids. Can't picture it from a nun but priests, sure. It  might cause you to not enjoy a particular one and be glad when he is transferred, or it might make him one of your favorites. I went to a Catholic high school and I remember some of the friars using colorful language. 

I haven't seen the movie but religious folks are always ripe for a mainstream or well produced movie to reflect their faith in a positive way so I'm not surprised the buzz it is getting. The old ladies group at my church went to see it together and loved it. But a bunch of Catholic old ladies is not afraid of drinking and swearing- not the ones I hang around with at least. 

Not to mention that the evolution of Marky Mark to proud practicing Catholic is pretty intriguing.

 

[HomeAgain]

2 hours ago, teachermom2834 said:

Not to mention that the evolution of Marky Mark to proud practicing Catholic is pretty intriguing.

 

LOL  Marky Mark was raised in Boston.  It is extremely likely he was confirmed at age 15 and has an extensive Catholic family of all variety.  I didn't doubt that he would eventually find a way to bring that part of him forward.  But practicing?  I'm not so sure he's a routine Sunday kind of person.  It is an aspect he admires, though.

I'd go out on a limb and say that his comfortableness with swearing as a part of normal vocabulary is part of who he made Father Stu be.  There does tend to be more cursing up here as a matter of course, compared to, say, where we lived in Texas.  Texas danced around the issues and blessed everyone's hearts.  Bostonians tend to be quicker to point something out in a straightforward manner, sometimes punctuated with language.  As someone who grew up in CA, it's similar in directness, but with a different vibe.

[teachermom2834]

1 minute ago, HomeAgain said:

LOL  Marky Mark was raised in Boston.  It is extremely likely he was confirmed at age 15 and has an extensive Catholic family of all variety.  I didn't doubt that he would eventually find a way to bring that part of him forward.  But practicing?  I'm not so sure he's a routine Sunday kind of person.  It is an aspect he admires, though.

I'd go out on a limb and say that his comfortableness with swearing as a part of normal vocabulary is part of who he made Father Stu be.  There does tend to be more cursing up here as a matter of course, compared to, say, where we lived in Texas.  Texas danced around the issues and blessed everyone's hearts.  Bostonians tend to be quicker to point something out in a straightforward manner, sometimes punctuated with language.  As someone who grew up in CA, it's similar in directness, but with a different vibe.

He actually has talked alot about practicing. He recently posted a video on social media about the Eucharist and stopping everything on the movie set to get to mass. He posts on Ash Wednesday with ashes, etc. He has spoken frequently about confession and the sacraments. He is a practicing Catholic. 

[LucyStoner]

11 hours ago, heartlikealion said:

That is a good question. I found this link: https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/am-i-really-not-allowed-to-cuss-or-swear and this video: 

At any rate it’s always been frowned upon (IMO) to use vulgar language in church. Not all the movie scenes are in church but the guy is still a representative of the Church so at the very least it seems unprofessional. That’s my opinion, anyway. 

Fr. Mike’s three guidelines about when swearing is sinful more or less line up with the guidelines we have always used for our kids regardless of religious practice.  1. No swearing at people.  2. Don’t make the profound profane or degrading and 3. Be thoughtful with how you speak in public settings/aware of how your language comes across to others.  
 

Fr. Mike interviews Wahlberg:  
 

 

[heartlikealion]

2 hours ago, LucyStoner said:

Fr. Mike’s three guidelines about when swearing is sinful more or less line up with the guidelines we have always used for our kids regardless of religious practice.  1. No swearing at people.  2. Don’t make the profound profane or degrading and 3. Be thoughtful with how you speak in public settings/aware of how your language comes across to others.  
 

Fr. Mike interviews Wahlberg:  
 

 

He says right in the video f bombs in practically every scene lol I heard like 3-4 in a confessional booth scene. And it was a very short scene. It was more jarring/out of place to me that others I guess… 

my parents were strict about language so I guess I assumed curse words were a sin but didn’t really dissect it. 

[heartlikealion]

5 hours ago, teachermom2834 said:

He actually has talked alot about practicing. He recently posted a video on social media about the Eucharist and stopping everything on the movie set to get to mass. He posts on Ash Wednesday with ashes, etc. He has spoken frequently about confession and the sacraments. He is a practicing Catholic. 

When I googled him the other day I read he usually goes to Mass twice on Sundays. Definitely more involved than I realized. 

[heartlikealion]

13 hours ago, LucyStoner said:

He wasn’t a priest for very long at all.  He got sick in seminary and he only lived 7 years between his ordination and his death.  It’s my understanding that most of those years were spent in a nursing home because he needed significant daily care.  
 

I think if anything the movie *played up* the seedy impression of his life.  In real life, he obtained a college degree in English Lit while he was boxing as a young man.  He left boxing because of an injury, not when we was old/washed up.  Some of his last jobs before entering seminary were running a museum and teaching at a Catholic school while he discerned if he was really being called to the priesthood.  I think he had DUIs and he worked as a bartender at some point but I do not get the impression that he was “a gangster”.  

Here he is in his own words:

Priests definitely have smoked and drank, sometimes heavily.  When the seminary building near my home was converted to other uses after two decades of disuse, they found a mysterious sap oozing from the walls of the apartments used by the staff priests.  They sent it for testing🤣, IT WAS NICOTINE from the decades of heavy smoking by the priests who lived and worked there. 

I think the term gangster was used in the movie at one point but I could be mistaken. And I don’t think he had actually been in a gang after googling it. But he was prone to street fights and in the film some of that was lost on me. As I type this I do recall him beating a couple people up in the film but he didn’t look like the bully because the other characters kinda provoked it. 

In the end credits you see the real Fr Stu celebrating Mass at the alter. In the film we got none of that. Was just a little disappointing. 

[LucyStoner]

7 minutes ago, heartlikealion said:

He says right in the video f bombs in practically every scene lol I heard like 3-4 in a confessional booth scene. And it was a very short scene. It was more jarring/out of place to me that others I guess… 

my parents were strict about language so I guess I assumed curse words were a sin but didn’t really dissect it. 

And then he immediately reversed himself and said "not every scene".  I watched the film.  I heard a lot of swearing but nothing that made it impossible for me to believe that this man had a sincere religious conversion.  Maybe I am misremembering but I only recall Fr. Stu going to confession twice and then him hearing another priest's confession.  Do not recall any swearing when he was hearing confession. 

Since I haven't seen a confessional used in decades (I made my first confession facing the priest in a small room in 1986 and every confession I have every been to has been face to face), I was more surprised that he was going to confession in a booth than by his language TBH. 

 

[LucyStoner]

4 minutes ago, heartlikealion said:

I think the term gangster was used in the movie at one point but I could be mistaken. And I don’t think he had actually been in a gang after googling it. But he was prone to street fights and in the film some of that was lost on me. As I type this I do recall him beating a couple people up in the film but he didn’t look like the bully because the other characters kinda provoked it. 

In the end credits you see the real Fr Stu celebrating Mass at the alter. In the film we got none of that. Was just a little disappointing. 

I'm not convinced that there's a lot of street gang activity in Helena Montana but maybe I am wrong about that.  Was he ever arrested for anything other than a DUI?  

[heartlikealion]

Just now, LucyStoner said:

And then he immediately reversed himself and said "not every scene".  I watched the film.  I heard a lot of swearing but nothing that made it impossible for me to believe that this man had a sincere religious conversion.  Maybe I am misremembering but I only recall Fr. Stu going to confession twice and then him hearing another priest's confession.  Do not recall any swearing when he was hearing confession. 

Since I haven't seen a confessional used in decades (I made my first confession facing the priest in a small room in 1986 and every confession I have every been to has been face to face), I was more surprised that he was going to confession in a booth than by his language TBH. 

 

Yea that’s why I paraphrased him with the word practically. 

Let’s just say it was more F words than I think I’ve ever heard in any movie, ever lol I found that ironic. 

None of the churches I go to have the window thing but those are in every movie lol I think Zorro and many others. The ones I go to usually have a half wall and you can kneel behind the wall or walk around and wall and look at the priest in the eyes. I think the booths are in some old buildings and may or may not still be used. 

he didn’t cuss in the confessional as the priest but he did talking to the priest. He didn’t actually go through with the confession at least once because I remember him leaving in a bit of a huff. 

[heartlikealion]

Almost 40x the f word is used 

https://kids-in-mind.com/f/father-stu-parents-guide-movie-review-rating.htm

[heartlikealion]

6 minutes ago, LucyStoner said:

I'm not convinced that there's a lot of street gang activity in Helena Montana but maybe I am wrong about that.  Was he ever arrested for anything other than a DUI?  

I don’t think they talk about arrests really. I had just heard he was a bully/instigator in real life in regards to fighting in his past. 

[LucyStoner]

So it's safe to say that for some people the swearing detracted from the story.  

For me, it really didn't.  What detracted from the story for me was the direction, the editing (parts were choppy and the camera closeups got to be a bit much).  Some of the most important parts of the story felt like a movie trailer rather than a full film.  I thought that it was an interesting story overall and didn't think that the film quite did the man himself justice.  The whole thing felt like a great idea for a film rather than a great film.  I wanted to like it more than I actually did like it.  

Edited April 19, 2022 by LucyStoner

[heartlikealion]

4 minutes ago, LucyStoner said:

So it's safe to say that for some people the swearing detracted from the story.  

For me, it really didn't.  What detracted from the story for me was the direction, the editing (parts were choppy and the camera closeups got to be a bit much).  Some of the most important parts of the story felt like a movie trailer rather than a full film.  I thought that it was an interesting story overall and didn't think that the film quite did the man himself justice.  The whole thing felt like a great idea for a film rather than a great film.  I wanted to like it more than I actually did like it.  

I can see that. I got distracted by some minor things that either were explained and I missed because of not understanding dialogue or omission of details (where did the motorcycle even come from lol).