Movie Review: Saint Ralph

SaintRalph
Originally uploaded by jjactive2.

Rating: * * * 1/2 water bottles (out of 4)

Fourteen-year-old Ralph Walker (Adam Butcher) doesn’t want to be an orphan. But that’s what he’ll be if his mother doesn’t get the miracle she needs to wake up from her coma. After being “conscripted” by his Catholic school’s cross-country team, Ralph learns from Father Hibbert (Campbell Scott) that it would take a miracle for him to win the Boston Marathon. Naturally, Ralph puts one and one together and gets three: “If I can win the Boston Marathon then my Mom will get better,” he deduces.

No chance, right? Not so fast, Phidippides.

Saint Ralph writer and director Michael McGowan, a distance runner himself — he won the 1995 Detroit Marathon with a time of 2:18:11 — claims that since 1954, when the movie is set, 14-year-olds have run faster than that year’s 2:20:39 winning time. And though Boston already was a big race back in the 1950s, it still was possible for an unknown to come from nowhere and compete for the win.

It turns out Ralph has both “an incredible capacity for work” and a conviction that he’s destined for greatness. In Father Hibbert, once Canada’s fastest marathoner and now a restless priest studying Nietzsche (“God is dead.”), he has an enlightened coach who supervises workouts like a 20 X 1-mile nighttime interval session and who doesn’t deny Ralph the power of prayer: “Most marathoners will tell you around mile 20 they’ll start praying for any kind of help they can get.”

With just five months until the race, can a combination of perspiration and divine intervention carry Ralph over the finish line first? “There’s only one way to find out,” he says.

Of course there are obstacles. Father Fitzpatrick (Gordon Pinsent), the absurdly stereotypical stern headmaster, believes Ralph’s quest for a miracle is sacrilegious and is determined to keep him out of the race and in his place at the bottom of the school’s food chain. He’d rather beat Ralph down into salvation than help him build wings.

And Ralph is distracted by the beautiful but evasive Claire (Tamara Hope), who, though clearly intrigued by her suitor’s odd charms, constructs a “Great Wall of China” chastity strategy and claims she can’t date him because she’s destined for the convent.

As Ralph shapes up and “closes in on miracle country,” clinging to the idea he can win the race and bring his mother back to life, the dogged dreamer inspires Father Hibbert to recall why he became a priest: "To help people." And maybe to rekindle his own belief in chasing miracles.

“Before I met that young man, I didn’t much believe in anything,” says Father Hibbert as Ralph prepares to run Boston. “But now I’m starting to think that one day, when my time is up, God is going to ask me: 'George, did you ever put it on the line? Did you ever not know and still jump? Did you ever just close your eyes and let go?’”

Saint Ralph is beautifully filmed on location in and around Hamilton, Ontario. Though the Canadian filmmakers didn’t have the budget to shoot in Massachusetts for the final race scenes, they manage to replicate the feeling of Boston in the mid-1950s. Throughout the movie the running scenes are realistic and fun to watch. McGowan shows just enough training and racing scenes to capture the beauty of distance running without losing the interest of non-runners.

Saint Ralph jogs a narrow line both between comedy and drama and over-sentimentality and poignancy. It may be formulaic but it’s the “innocent underdog’s quest for greatness” formula that most of us like. There’s also just enough quirkiness — such as a scene in which Ralph’s deceased war-hero father appears as a vision dressed as Santa Claus and exhorts him to relax his arms while running — to keep us off balance. By the time Ralph digs deep for his kick to the finish line in Boston, we realize McGowan has created a touching fable about two things he’s passionate about: distance running and his faith.

Saint Ralph is available on DVD or video. Please don't get it at Blockbuster, as Activeness has put that company on its Permanently Deactivated list. If you're watching with the kiddies or Pat Robertson, note that some sexual content and partial nudity make its PG-13 rating well-deserved.