Saint Ralph

Saint Ralph

Directed by: Michael McGowan

Starring: Adam Butcher

Genre: Drama/Comedy

Run Time: 98 min.

Release Date: August 2005

On The Web: UnOfficial Site

Teaser: Movie Trailer

Reviewed by Byron Merritt

SAINT RALPH is a pleasant surprise most watchers will find hidden away (or absent) at most video rental stores simply because it didn’t get a lot of notice in the States. Filmed entirely in Canada by a Canadian crew and cast, this film will make it to the top of many favorites lists once viewers get a chance to see it.

If you’re a fan of HOOSIERS, ROCKY, or some other underdog story, you’ll slowly fall for Saint Ralph in similar style.

The story is that of a troubled 14-year-old at a parochial Catholic school in 1950s Ontario. Ralph Walker is his name (relative unknown Adam Butcher) and he’s acting out at school. He smokes. He uses God’s name in vain. He has “impure thoughts.” And he has a mother who is very sick; a type of brain cancer is easily surmised. Ralph’s father died in WWII and he now lives alone in a dilapidated home. Using school chum Chester (Michael Kanev) to help fake notes from Ralph’s non-existent grandmother and grandfather, Ralph is able to fool the Catholic school’s principal, Father Fitzpatrick (Gordon Pinsent, THE GOOD SHEPHERD), into believing he resides with his aging grandparents.

Ralph’s mother Emma (Shauna MacDonald) eventually slips into a coma and Ralph is now truly alone in the world. Grasping at anything that is more anchored than himself, Ralph begins falling apart but holds himself together thanks to a kindly nurse at the hospital named Alice (Jennifer Tilly, TIDELAND) and a good-hearted priest named Father George Hibbert (Campbell Scott, MUSIC AND LYRICS). Father Hibbert one day initiates an interesting discussion in class about miracles and saints. How ordinary people of the past begat divine miracles. And when Ralph was at the hospital recently, Nurse Alice told him it would take a miracle for his mother to wake up from her coma. The idea to do something saintly so that his mother will awaken comes to him and he settles on winning the Boston Marathon. With the help of Father Hibbert’s training, Nurse Alice’s weight-lifting, and his classmates wavering support, Ralph eventually runs the Boston Marathon and ... we’ll have to stop there.

Uplifting isn’t a word I would associate with myself, simply because I’m not a religious person. But one not need be to enjoy the messages entrenched in Saint Ralph. The uplifting music (Hallelujah), and the study of human endurance and friendship are a part of each of us regardless of our “godly” make-up. It is hope that’ll keep viewers watching, not any sense of the miraculous, simply because many can’t or won’t believe in miracles (myself among them).

It is also nice that the makers of this excellent movie didn’t drop to the lowest religious denominator and thankfully made Ralph be a horribly flawed young man (including drinking, enjoying things that rub against his crotch, cursing, smoking, and nearly giving up on everything and everyone).

The final sequence of scenes will remain with many as we watch Ralph return to school from Boston and meet up with many of his detractors and supporters. Yeah, it’s uplifting but hallelujah! it’s not corny.