Starring: Laura Linney, Tom Wilkinson (I), Shohreh Aghdashloo

3 out of 10 stars

When you're going to see something starring Laura Linney, Tom Wilkinson and Campbell Scott, you'd expect it to be a classy Broadway play and not some cheesy, manipulative thriller, right? Unfortunately, these three prodigiously talented actors are wasting their time together in The Exorcism of Emily Rose, a lugubrious retread of the territory covered ably by The Exorcist some 30-plus years ago - young girl is possessed by the devil, priest must perform exorcism, cue the speaking in tongues and abuse of various crucifixes. However, instead of pea-soup vomit, levitating beds and shocking profanity we get…. a courtroom drama. About the devil. The concept may strike terror into your heart, but I have a feeling it's not the kind of horror you expect from a movie.

Ostensibly based on a true story, The Exorcism of Emily Rose tries to gussy up its cheap thrills by dressing them in dry arguments about faith and the classiness of a courtroom setting. Instead of giving the sight of a teenage girl in various religion-induced paroxysms any kind of gravitas, though, it points up the manipulative extremes to which filmmakers will go to shake up an audience. Whereas The Exorcist slowly built up its scares, Emily Rose doles them out at regular intervals like slop on a food tray. Bored by the testimony of some medical expert? Cut to the flashback of Emily thrashing about in her dorm room. Tired of wondering whether or not the devil may exist? Here's a sequence of Emily fleeing through the rain, the face of every passerby turning into that of a melting demon. Wondering when the poor priest on trial is finally going to take the stand? Time for the Aramaic and guttural howlings.

Despite the shamelessly calculating role all these torturous scenes play, they do distract from the meat of this movie, which is centered around one of the most dull cinematic trials in recent memory, that of Father Moore (Wilkinson), who's being charged for negligence that resulted in Emily's death. A sweet, devout country girl, Emily, upon entering college began experiencing hallucinations and symptoms that could point towards either epilepsy or possession. When medical solutions fail her, she retreats home and her parents call up the local priest to perform an exorcism; Emily's resulting death is attributed to him, and he's quickly put on trial. Of course, in a movie that's about religion themes, it's important that the protagonist not be, so thus is Erin Bruner (Linney) trotted out, a defense lawyer we know is an agnostic because she drinks too many martinis. Skeptical at first, she's eventually won over by Moore's protestations, and structures a defense that, in perfectly legal logic, doesn't so much set out to prove he's right as it does assert that he might not be wrong.

If you're a lawyer with a penchant for religious thrillers, The Exorcism of Emily Rose might prove an interesting distraction, but for the rest of us, it appears designed mainly as an exercise to watch many actors suffer. Linney is forced to enact not only an absurd trial defense but also play a kind of parochial school version of Nancy Drew, slowly uncovering the mystery of what really happened to Emily; even worse, she's saddled with a terrible feathery haircut that can't even be re-created in the movie's many obviously re-shot scenes. Wilkinson has little to do but glare balefully at various symbols meant to represent the devil, and Scott, as the prosecuting attorney, seems only all too familiar with his character's discomfort at having to participate in a flagrantly bogus trial. Along for the ride are Mary Beth Hurt (as a severe judge), Henry Czerny (as a snotty doctor), Colm Feore (as Linney's slimy boss), and Shohreh Aghdashloo (as an anthropologist with a specialty in possession), who either squirm about uncomfortably, or in Aghdashloo's case, hide behind a sari and an accent. Worst of all, though, is poor Jennifer Carpenter, who as Emily herself, is forced to undergo innumerable scenes in which she's made to jump around, scratch at herself, throw herself through windows, scream incoherently, and otherwise debase herself in the name of what's meant to pass as a religious experience. In the end, though, it seems downright cruel to the actress as well as the audience - and it's pure torture for both.