The Exorcism of Emily Rose
The film opens with a shot of an old farmhouse that looks exactly like the house from M. Night Shyamalan's Signs. Emily Rose has died. "I can't rule out homicide," says the medical examiner, and with that pronouncement, a policeman takes Father Moore to jail, and the story begins.
Erin Bruner, an ambitious, martini-swilling lawyer, takes the case. Her motivation: if successful, she will earn a partnership at her law firm. Her character arc takes her from someone who is agnostic and detached from the horror of Rose's and Moore's trauma to someone who believes in God and chooses, in the end, to forego that promotion. Bruner's turning point comes when she decides to prove that Emily’s possession was real.
I feel that Bruner's arc is weak. Why agnostic? Why not have her begin as a full-on atheist, dead set against the possibility of demonic possession? At the end of the film, her rationale for taking a pass on her promotion is murky. Does it stem from learning that the law does not allow for "possibilities," as she stated in her closing argument, and acknowledges only hard facts? Would that have been enough to let go of a huge promotion? I am not convinced. She could have taken the promotion and used her new, nuanced understanding of what’s possible to improve her practice.
The narrative is structured as a courtroom drama with flashbacks to Emily's possession. I have watched many Netflix series where the plot is complex and drawn out over several seasons, so perhaps that’s why I think the courtroom scenes seem truncated. I don’t quite understand why the family and the priest stopped giving Emily the anti-psychotic drug. It seems it would have prevented the demon from leaving. How do they know that? And, why wouldn't it have been possible for her to be psychotic/epileptic and, at the same time, vulnerable to possession? Why are the two states mutually exclusive? In reading about the real-life case, I gathered that Annaliese Michel was a mentally ill woman who might have been possessed. At least, it's open to interpretation. And since Erin Bruner is open to possibilities, isn’t a dual diagnosis one she would consider?
After the demon causes the doctor's death, Bruner despairs that there is no one else to testify. Mr. and Mrs. Rose are too devout and unsophisticated. Why isn't Emily's male friend from college considered? He was a witness to the possession, after all. And not a “rube” like Emily’s parents are thought to be.
I am more interested in the possession itself and the young girl's experience than the courtroom aspect. Emily’s narrative is interrupted whenever the film cuts back to the trial. The use of flashbacks puts distance between the viewer and Emily's possession, and because of that, her scenes have less impact.
Despite those misgivings, I found the portions that dealt with Emily’s possession to be frightening and realistic. The scene in the university hospital when the demon first overcomes Emily is terrifying. Emily slides along the floor; her movements well-choreographed, almost dance-like. The floor is the color of drying blood, which adds a demonic note. Jennifer Carpenter uses her asymmetrical facial features effectively in her portrayal of the demon speaking through Emily. In one scene, her body becomes rigid, and in another, she bends backward in an unnatural way. These kinds of bodily anomalies are very frightening, and Carpenter’s Emily is disturbing here (I covered my eyes when she bent backward during the scene in the university chapel with her male friend.) One of the reasons demons are so horrifying in films is this very propensity for causing our bodies to bend and stretch in ways they aren't meant to move. As humans driven by instinct to protect our bodies, this is perhaps the most disturbing aspect of all, and the actress allows us to see Emily's horror at what is happening to her.
The out-of-body scene where Emily has a vision of Mary, after which she chooses to return to her debilitated human form, is profound, and I can see why Father Moore considered her a saint. Overall, I wanted to learn more about Emily and less about Erin. For instance, her parents tell us that she was devout, but we don’t see that onscreen as the film only shows her story from the flashback perspective. How did this young woman come to be someone who would choose torture to provide a lesson to the world? For me, that would be a more involving story.