Undescribable Perfection

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

The acting in this movie is really good.

Henry Poole (Luke Wilson) has lost all hope. He tries to buy his childhood home but he can only get a house in the neighborhood. There's a water stain on the wall. His neighbor Esperanza Martinez (Adriana Barraza) insists it's the face of Christ. It starts to bleed and she gets Father Salazar (George Lopez) to test it. More and more people arrive to see the miracle. Dawn Stupek (Radha Mitchell) and her daughter Millie (Morgan Lily) live next door. Millie has stopped talking since her father left a year earlier. She has her tape recorder and she befriends Henry.It's a really touching movie at times. It's a spiritual movie that isn't too preachy. I would have liked Henry Poole do more than mop. Also Luke Wilson is a little limited as an actor. However, the touching moments are really powerful. Esperanza starts out as an annoying neighbor but her story is much deeper than that. Morgan Lily is unbearably adorable. This is a surprisingly little movie.

Sorry, but this film lost me when blood started coming out of the wall.The film is classified as a comedy, but the only funny thing about it was that it reminded me of that old SNL skit, 'find the Pope in the Pizza' by Father Guido Sarducci! The Good News? You don't have to be an atheist to be annoyed by this thinly-disguised religious-propaganda film; the hackneyed script & poor acting will do the job.And sorry, but Esperanza was just plain irritating (and her attachment to "God's face" was only partly responsible for that...) I'm not an atheist, nor do I have a problem with films about God, miracles, faith & hope ('Simon Birch' is one of my favorite movies.) Heck, I can even stomach stories about the stigmata if they're well-written. But a bad film is a bad film. In fact, watching too many films like this might just TURN me into an atheist.Luke Wilson must have been fooled like the rest of us, thinking he was signing on for a comedy instead of a movie about a grieving filmmaker's religious beliefs, along with the requisite distrust of science...~NN

Poole really tries hard to be a film about anything except "religion". The simple tale is told very quietly and very strongly. Here is just a man lost in the world, played with even more hangdog than usual by an excellent Luke Wilson, whose neighbor thinks she sees a manifestation in a plaster stain on Henry's wall.I don't remember the last time a film started so slowly and just grew and grew into something this good. The film blossoms without losing its fabulous sense of pace: slow, almost meditative, but never boring, this is essentially a character piece and each character has been workshopped beautifully - they have impact and weight because they simply are as natural as possible.This is one of those unique and sneaky films that should never work yet does and in spades. A terrific little movie that is what movies are all about: takes you on an unexpected journey that's well worth your time. Recommended.

All right, so I freely admit being that horrid creature, a European socialist, and actually even a long standing militant atheist. Whilst enjoying my free health benefits, never to be achieved in the USA, thanks to the health insurance lobbies and to many Republicans and some corrupt Democrat, I found this movie very good and not a religious propaganda one. The Devil's Advocate, now, trying to affirm the Devil as a real entity (and in the US, he is of course incarnate into a lawyer) that was probably paid for truly by Vatican funds, but this, no... This is a movie about living in the present (if anything this is Zen, not at all Catholic, the basic tenet of Catholics being: suffer now, get a prize later..), about how even misguided people may have positive feelings, how death in a predominantly Protestant culture like the contemporary USA is something people are unable to deal with, how the "good neighbourhood" tradition and customs may occasionally appear empty of meaning. It may make you think and perhaps cry (I did both). Well done!