DVD Review: The Last Sin Eater
- Theatrical release date
- February 9, 2007
- DVD release date
- May 15, 2007
- Grade
- C
An earnest little movie with an intriguing story at its core.
Lately, movie studios have been pushing out some religious-themed films in order to tempt the devout to come to the multiplex. Exploiting a niche is hardly a sin, but often, the studios’ attempts at honoring religion have come off heavy-handed, treacly, or both. And a religiously-themed movie can have dialogue and acting just as bad as any other movie (for an example, I would refer you to the embarrassingly sincere but ineptly-executed One Night with the King).
Into this milieu, Fox Searchlight Pictures green-lit a movie version of Francine Rivers’ book The Last Sin Eater. They then hired Michael Landon, Jr., to direct, and managed to attach such notable names as Louise Fletcher to the project. And then they released it for two weeks in February 2007, pulled it, and quietly threw out a nearly featureless DVD a mere three months later. It’s hard to see why they were so anxious to bury it, considering it’s definitely better than the competition.
The movie is hardly perfect. Utah simply can not double as Appalachia, no matter how hard the filmmakers try. No two people seem to have the same fake accent. A last-minute subplot, which turns out to be the important point the entire story hinges upon, is inserted toward the end without set-up and is quickly resolved. A guardian angel shows up but doesn’t contribute anything that the main character couldn’t figure out on her own. It’s also difficult to believe an entire community of transplanted Welsh have never, and I mean never, heard even one sermon about Jesus Christ. Even the oldest people in the community, who are supposedly part of the original contingent of settlers from Wales, don’t seem to have a clue, and I’m sorry, but I’ve never been to a small town in Britain that didn’t have a church.
As flawed as it is, however, the movie does have strengths that other movies in its genre have lacked. The acting is generally excellent, except perhaps for the sin eater, who seems awfully hysterical for someone who’s had twenty years to succumb to the despair of being a pariah. But nearly everyone else shines, especially the pre-teens who are central to the story and who have to support most of the scenes. The dialogue may sound awfully-accented, but it usually doesn’t ring false. Preachiness is kept to a minimum. And the story at the movie’s core is intriguing enough that the languid pacing is scarcely noticeable.
If you’re well-versed in obscure rural traditions of northern Europe or if you sat through the abominable The Order back in 2003, then you already know that a sin eater is someone who consumes a dead person’s sins after they die by literally eating bread that has lain on, or been passed over, the corpse. Today, the tradition survives in symbolic form in some places in Britain where “burial cakes” are still made for funerals.
The movie follows the adventures of Cadi Forbes, a young girl with a big sin burdening her soul, and her attempts to rid herself of this sin by engaging the services of a sin eater before she’s dead (or, failing that, to kill herself so that the sin eater can remove her sins after death). At the same time, an itinerant preacher shows up in this sleepy Appalachian valley spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ.
You might suspect a showdown between the preacher and the sin eater, but actually, the preacher, and Cadi’s quest, are the twin engines that drive the action toward a showdown between the sin eater and someone else entirely.
In the tradition of religious movies, the ending is a bit too tidy. The bad guy is shamed, everyone forgives, and the sin eater goes from failed Jesus Christ substitute to successful John the Baptist figure. And everybody’s happy.
Despite the flaws, however, the characters at the center of the story are strong enough, and interesting enough, to help this movie, unlike others of its ilk, keep its head above water.
Copyright . Published 1 July 2008 in What’s New.
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