St. Vincent

It's always good to see Bill Murray on screen, even when the character he is playing is unattractive.  In the character Vincent in this movie, we have a man who is a drunk, a gambler, and a man who hires a pregnant prostitute because he likes her belly.  There would be no movie to speak of here if something didn't come into Vincent's world to change things.  Vincent's new neighbor Maggie (Melissa McCarthy, in a refreshingly non-crazy role) has found herself unable to care for her son Oliver after school.  In desperation, she agrees to begin paying Vincent to watch Oliver so she can continue to earn an income and support her son.  As a single mother, Maggie is in a bind, but the person she picks seems to defy her own better judgement.

The first 15 minutes or so of this movie show us one anecdote after another to establish Vincent as a cretin.  This is a set up to see the fireworks once the crisis that we know is coming does indeed come. While Oliver is at school, two chief things are happening.  First, as an outsider at a new school, he is faced with bullying and teasing.  Second, he is given an assignment to do a project about a Catholic Saint of the past, and to augment that through writing about a saint in his own life.  As Oliver spends more time with Vincent, the layers of Vincent's life are peeled back, and we begin to see through the hard shell the man has built for himself (or has been put upon him through suffering).  We begin to see him in his totality.  He doesn't suddenly become, well, a saint.  But the complicated realities of his life come to bare, and his predicament could help but bring sympathy and emotion from me as I watch the story unfold.

I don't think there is anything terribly unique about this movie.  The chief hole in the ploy is so great that the film itself ends up having to address it.  Once the viewer can get past the absurdity of Maggie paying Vincent to watch her son, the film begins to work really well.  I cannot help but have admiration for the fine performances in this movie.  Bill Murray is great as always.  The first and last images of him in the movie are both unique, and they serve as remarkable bookends for his character.  Furthermore, I think movie directors should take this movie's example and use the closing credits to keep the audience in the seats (Pixar has also done this well).  Melissa McCarthy is a fine actress. and it is wonderful to see her outside of her slapstick comic persona (as much as that persona is great).  She creates a character here who is world weary and backed into a corner.  She is out of options, so she makes Vincent her son's caregiver, even though she knows he is less than savory.  The young actor who plays Oliver (Jaeden Lieberher) is also very convincing.  He brings this outsider to life and makes us sympathize with him.  Oliver's character is the backbone of the film.  When the emotional payoff takes place at the end of the movie, it is made possible largely because of how believable Lieberher has made him.

The theme of the film really comes down to the question of what makes a saint.  As a Christian, I found the theme to be so applicable.  We live in a world corrupted by sin and human folly, and the notion that any human is a saint can be laughable.  This movie brings to the forefront the idea that ugly people can do saintly things.  How that happens is a matter of debate.  I think it shows us that any human can, by grace, be called a saint.