Try to come into possession of this great title, as a number of good things under the banner of wondrous direction come to fruition.

Rating: 8/10 (9 September 2010)

In The Exorcist, director William Friedkin weaves you down a tense and terrifying path of trauma; resilience; suffering; grief; the questioning of faith and, ultimately, evil. By the time the film had bedded down into this, rather literally, one on one scenario between the powers of good and evil, locked away within the confinement of a young girl's bedroom, I was worn out in all the right ways and there was still much more to come. The film fascinatingly and meticulously balances the plight of a handful of characters caught up with one another whilst on the front-line of a case involving the possession of a young girl by a demon. It details the agony and confusion at what might be wrong with her, by those close to her, right the way through to the plight of a police detective wanting to solve the cases of a handful of murders perpetrated by said spirit; all of it wonderfully well and without ever over tilting the emphasis on any one story.
The film will begin in The Middle East, specifically Iraq, and an archaeologist is undergoing a large dig with dozens of locals in searching for something which is eventually found. The sense that the archaeologist has been there for a fair while, in attempting to find what it was he was looking for, is put across by way of his arriving at some ancient ruins before having some armed guards retreat upon seeing whom it actually is that has hared up to their entrance in a jeep. His time away from home and in this location suggests a great importance surrounding the item he's searching for, an importance that we feel has seen this elderly man sacrifice most of his later years in looking for it. What he finds appears to be more than a mere physical item, the apparent fever that follows his uncovering of a small fist sized trinket having him suddenly become aware of all the relatively uncanny iconography in the form of gargoyles and such when around the ancient ruins he clearly frequents often enough. If, for all that time, the said items did not all that much bother him as they tower over the general locale, then we most certainly feel something must be inherently wrong for him to be affected, scared even, by them now.
Friedkin fools us into thinking this is a film about this archaeologist whom uncovered more than he thought he would in the desert. In cutting to a quaint American suburb in the town of Georgetown, Washington; the director executes his first effective gear change in tone, study and general content as the lives of an American actress in Chris MacNeil (Burstyn) and her daughter Regan (Blair) are focused on. They dwell in a large, detached house; have a healthy family relationship with one another and the domestic bliss that is this cushy American suburban existence in a really pleasant area seems too good to be true. Another major player in proceedings is young priest Damien Karras (Miller), somebody whose faith to his profession is itself under threat and whose mother is elderly and frail. The boxing trophies, his photographs and the general mise-en-scene of his small apartment in a rough neighbourhood suggests he was once a fighter, a scrapper and apparently quite good at it. A glance at his exterior surroundings and the sorts of people whom inhabit it on the career paths they are twinned with a gradual revealing of the kindhearted manner he exudes suggests a resilience through adversity; an ability to become a priest over a thief or criminal and that he may have fought a fair few battles in his time thus nicely setting things up for later duels.
The inclusion of Karras is another element Friedkin introduces still without revealing a discernible pattern to proceedings nor in which the direction the film is heading. We are challenged to form a correlation between the three parties, left hanging on the fate of the early archaeologist and left questioning whose story it is. As things unravel Regan becomes ill and the doctor discerns it as an interior problem of a scientific nature which can be treated despite Regan's claims and pleas. In providing us with a 'sick' character during the opening and wonderfully establishing the extent as to which the illness affected him before cutting away without much resolution, the rendering of Regan as unwell has us wonder as to the extent it will affect her and her ability as this young girl to deal with something that it's been previously established has a powerful affect on people.
In years gone by, it might have been crude to ruin what it is that forces Regan to become as ill as she does; needless to say in case you're unaware, the issue is less so a scientific one than it is one of a theological nature. As the rest of the characters are left guessing, police Lieutenant William Kinderman (Cobb) is introduced to the text, Friedkin shooting one of his exchanges with Karras beside a tennis court after previously having them get along rather nicely; the use of the court in the background and link to tennis has us think of a tennis match, specifically a one on one match of gamesmanship unfolding on top of all this other activity as Karras and Kinderman clash over the investigating of the death of a British film-maker linked to Chris. The final act sees Friedkin go for the kill, cracking on ahead with a terrifying series of scenes which work gloriously and round off a wonderful directorial job. The film, essentially a battle between good and evil, is rich in disturbing imagery without being exploitative and high drama covering a number of strands and arcs, all of which work. The Exorcist is a superb thriller, running on controversial subject matter and the brilliant direction required to hit levels of this ilk.