Father Stu (2022) * *

 

Directed by:  Rosalind Ross

Starring:  Mark Wahlberg, Mel Gibson, Jacki Weaver, Teresa Ruiz, Malcolm McDowell

Stu Long (Wahlberg) is an outgoing optimist hoping to find a career to latch on to which will bring him fame and fortune.   As a child, he idolizes Elvis Presley by imitating his hip swiveling, but his enthusiasm is squelched by his verbally abusive alcoholic father Bill (Gibson).   Bill will do a lot of that throughout Stu's life.   As an adult, Stu starts out as a boxer with decent success until a life-threatening medical issue ends his boxing days.   Stu then lights out for Hollywood in hopes of becoming an actor.  He lands a couple of commercials, but with little other success.   He then meets a woman he falls hard for named Carmen (Ruiz), for whom he converts to Catholicism.  Following a terrible motorcycle accident which nearly claims his life, Stu decides to become a priest, much to the chagrin of Carmen who was hoping for a marriage proposal.

Despite the enthusiasm Mark Wahlberg applies to the role of Stu, Father Stu doesn't stir up much emotion in the viewer, even when Stu is diagnosed with a version of ALS which will cripple him physically but not spiritually.   Father Stu Long died in 2014 at age 50, but by then he had reconciled with his father and mother and forged a path of spirituality which fulfilled him.   I was happy for him, but not much moved.  Something is missing in the translation, or maybe we can't figure why this story needed to be told.   

Father Stu was a passion project for Wahlberg for years and finally got it to the big screen.  There is little doubting his admiration for Stu Long and his excitement to be playing him.  Gibson and Weaver are solid enough in their roles as Stu's divorced parents.   Ruiz handles the scene in which Stu announces he is going to be priest very well.   McDowell also delivers.   But the pacing is slow and Father Stu doesn't deliver in the moments in which it should be more powerful.   It is curiously muted, which may explain why it receives such a meh response.