The Third Miracle

Released 1999
Stars Ed Harris, Anne Heche, Armin Mueller-Stahl
Directed by Agnieszka Holland

Here is a rarity, a film about religion that is neither pious nor sensational, simply curious. No satanic possessions, no angelic choirs, no evil spirits, no lovers joined beyond the grave. Just a man doing his job. The man is Father Frank Shore, and he is a postulator--a priest assigned to investigate the possibility that someone was a saint. If he is convinced, he goes before a church tribunal and argues the case against another priest whose job is popularly known as "the devil's advocate." Ed Harris plays Frank Shore as a man with many doubts of his own. After deflating one popular candidate for sainthood, he became known as "the miracle killer," and in his dark moments he broods that he "destroyed the faith of an entire community." Now perhaps he will have to do it again.

Summary by Roger Ebert

This is an interesting film that goes behind the scenes of the Catholic church, and its strength is that it takes both the religion and the people seriously. Priests are men who are subject to lust and doubt just as anyone else. We've seen this topic tackled before, but this movie explores the topic well. The movie obscures the fact that it's really about a priest's doubts with the plot of the prospective sainthood, and this makes the movie's message more subtle and successful. I think it was subtle enough that some people may miss Helen's third miracle. Frank says they're still searching, but the third miracle was there at the end. --Bill Alward, February 18, 2002