I had never heard of this movie before, and just by chance, happened on it at the Big Lots! store on Route 46. It seemed interesting, had a decent cast, and so I shrugged and figured, "What the hell?", and went with it. Took kind of a long time to finally get around to watching it, but I got the opportunity to, finally.
I was not sure what to expect. For whatever the reason, I don't remember this movie from the time (1997), and I mean, at all. No commercials come to mind, no posters or anything. Nobody ever seemed to discuss it, and so it was a surprise to find. Just one of those movies that you never heard about, but winds up being fairly prominent.
This movie is a comedy, mostly, about a young man, Juvenal, played by Skeet Ulrich. Remember him? He was Billy, the boyfriend of perennial victim character Sidney, played by Neve Campbell, and wound up being one of the two young teenage killers in the original Scream movie. In fact, when I saw him pictured on the cover of this movie, my first instinct was to think, "Man, this guy never ages!"
Of course, later, I found out that the movie is actually fifteen years old, and was his next movie following Scream. But he had seemingly disappeared, and I could not place him in any acting roles since then. But checking out the IMBd, it appears that he has quite the lengthy acting resume, and was even on Law & Order recently, as Detective Rex Winters. Who knew?
Anyway, Ulrich plays this role as well as anyone could have. Juvenal is an almost saint like character who, amazingly enough, has the power to heal people. He even gets these Stigmata wounds, and so it seems, he is the reincarnation, or perhaps rather the return, of Jesus.
Still, his performing miracles certainly has not gone unnoticed. Among those who notice, and find themselves drawn to Juvenal are opportunist Bill Hill (played by Christopher Walken), and August Murray (played by Tom Arnold). In fact, Lynn, who becomes Juvenal's love interest, is initially a friend of Bill Hill, who is a schemer, and put her up to essentially faking a drinking problem at the clinic where Juvenal works, in order to get to know Juvenal better.
At first, he seems almost exactly like people's popular perceptions of Jesus - bearded (well, sort of), handsome, and able to perform healing miracles. However, this young man is different, as he begins to touch one particular person in a way that most hardline Christians would disapprove of, as he takes quite the liking to the striking eyes and figure of Lynn Marie Faulkner, played by Bridget Fonda. When she finally does get a chance to sit down with him, he seems to know things that he has no business knowing. He knows that she is not really an alcoholic, and he somehow knows that there is a lump in her breast, and his hands go straight there, essentially alleviating her fears on the one hand, while frightening her with his powers on the other. Lynn becomes a believer, and when she sees him next at a local church, he has cured a kid that had cancer. While everyone in attendance is too stunned to do anything, she approaches Juvenal and takes his hand, leading him away. He lets her. Bill Murray is watching all of this, and uses the pictures of the event to promote Juvenal out of pure self-interest. He appears unmoved by the miracles, seeing only the possibility of making money out of all of this.
August Murray, on the other hand, is an even strange character, a rather extremist, hard-line Christian who seems to be head of an organization known as Outrage!, and who walks around in a uniform that is vaguely reminiscent of the Brown Shirts of early Nazi Germany, although there is a lot more red (bordering on pink, seemingly) in this particular uniform, as he wears his colorful pants.
Both Bill Hill and August where their faith on their sleeve, but only one really seems to live it. While Bill is transparently just a mere opportunist point blank, we find August Murray to be a very hardline, fire and brimstone believer of the Christian faith. He seems to take his beliefs to an extreme but, at the very least, appears sincerely to actually hold true belief, unlike the much less sincere con artist Bill Hill. All that Bill really wants is to get Juvenal on television as quickly as possible, as a promotion scheme for an upcoming book. Bill wants the highest cut of the proceeds possible, as we learn. He is trying to wheel and deal his way for an appearance by Juvenal on a trashy talk show.
But they agree on one thing: that Juvenal is a miracle worker, a healer, and that these special powers should be preserved. His blossoming relationship with Lynn thus serves as a threat to his appearance as a miracle worker.
***Spoiler alert!*** I go on to tell the ending here, so if you plan to watch this movie and don't want me to ruin it for you, then perhaps you should refrain from reading on. unless you find the sheer brilliance of my words too hypnotic to turn away from. In that case, I certainly understand!
(hope the reader understands that I'm kidding, by the way)
In any case, the two major characters who aim to take advantage of Juvenal to suit their own purposes find themselves suddenly competing, seemingly, while Juvenal himself seems to be going in his own direction, having taken quite the liking to Lynn. But while he finds happiness with Lynn, he finds that his miraculous powers seem to have diminished down to nothing. He has found a palsied man in a mall and, wanting to continue his powers to heal, he puts his hands on the man, like he has done with successful results numerous times before. But nothing happens. Even when he cuts his hands open and touches the man with his bloodied hands (the bloody wounds from the nails driven through the hands of Christ have suddenly appeared when he has healed in the past), nothing happens, and so he thinks that perhaps his intimacy with Lynn has cost him the ability to continue healing.
They both express disappointment and disapproval of Juvenal's relationship with Lynn, but with August, it goes much further. His piousness cannot fathom that this man, a true miracle worker, would, according to his staunchly rigid and conservative interpretation of the faith, which he assumes the correct one, and which he also assumes, naturally, that the undeniable (according to him) miracle of Juvenal would automatically share that faith. When it turns out that he doesn't, August can't handle it.
He decides to act, and goes to Lynn's apartment, with the intent of killing her, so finally getting rid of her, and allowing Juvenal to finally be without distraction, and continue his healing works, his miracles. But Juvenal stands in between August and Lynn, and closes in on August. They struggle physically, and eventually, August is thrown from a two story balcony.
After this, we see Juvenal preparing to go on the trashy talk show. He is answering her questions with sincerity, and making intelligent, yet subtle points that appear to be lost on her, as she continues to pry for controversy, trying to expose him as some kind of a fraud. She even tries to launch a surprise attack against him, bringing out August in a wheelchair and body cast, while asking Juvenal if a miracle healer as he is claimed to be would also be capable of inflicting such serious injuries and pain upon a fellow human being. Juvenal, once he sees August, appears to be moved, and goes to him. While he is distracted by August, Lynn comes out, once again with the intent of taking Juvenal by the hand and leading him away. The host of the trashy talk show takes this as an opportunity to elaborate on the scandalous affair that she has with Juvenal, and seemingly assaults her with a relentless line of questioning. In the meantime, Juvenal approaches August. We see him once again perform a miracle, as he heals him, and August manages to break out of his body cast. A true miracle has once again occurred, and Juvenal still has his miraculous powers of healing!
Just after this, Lynn manages finally to break free of the television host's badgering questions, and once again leads Juvenal away from the scene of a true miracle. The television reporter and August, in the meantime, have discovered one another, and are both happy as pigs in mud, both finding the opportunity that they are seeking. She gets to talk to someone who, presumably, will talk trash, with his fire and brimstone speak, while he gets to promote his Outrage! movement, which we find, is really all that he wanted all of this time. For all his piety, which he wears on his sleeve, ultimately, he just wants, or rather needs, the press, the attention, the opportunity to be taken seriously, in order to be happy.
The miracle is lost on those who attend the show. August, who is the one that is healed, seems to forget Juvenal as quickly as he is healed and then being interviewed. The trashy host just wants the opportunity to generate saucy gossip material. The miracle that has occurred is quickly forgotten, and since it looks staged and made for television, the general audience remains skeptical and the general consensus is that it is all one big hoax, a mere opportunity by some schemers to get rich quickly. Thus, a true miracle, and a miracle worker, become lost, buried under less than honorable intentions by all parties close to Juvenal.
Juvenal himself runs away with Lynn, and they try and find a new place to make a fresh start. We see them driving down some highway, happy and in love, and the only suggestion as to where they might be heading is a sign welcoming them to Nebraska. His healing miracles may, or may not go on, but they escape the Hollywood focus of money making, the vulture culture that seems to turn everything into trash, essentially.
Everyone has missed a real miracle, by being unable to see it for what it is, so blinded are they in their self-interest. Bill Hill keeps having to play the delicate game of hiding his true intentions, and so he never really reveals what cards he is playing at any moment. The show hostess only wants better ratings, and so she uses Juvenal and August and the whole controversy for whatever ratings it can generate for her. And while August has at first appeared to be quite sincere (if seemingly a little naive in his own right), he nonetheless in the end proven to be a mere opportunist in his own right, finding satisfaction in a rare opportunity to gain an audience to promote his causes. He can finally speak to an audience and spread his message, his word, while that of the real healer and man of faith is lost in the circus act that follows him everywhere that he goes, through no fault of his own.
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