Stella Days (Thaddeus O'Sullivan, 2012)

Thaddeus O'Sullivan's Stella Days is pianissimo drama about an old Irish priest and his muted sorrow that gets so bogged down on its vague sense of misery that even the promise of cinema's wonder cannot inject some life into the movie. Martin Sheen is, as ever, charismatic, but all he does is morosely shuffle about a Tipperary village, getting into a watered-down, inoffensive spin on the highly contentious conflict of religious and secular values. Potentially intriguing subplots, such as the politician so devout he all but openly runs for Sheen's priesthood as much as any office, occasionally surface, but they neither develop nor fade into an atmospheric miasma that the best works of Irish discontent conjure.

My full review is up now at Spectrum Culture.