Joshua

I had the misfortune to encounter Father Girzone's Joshua back in the 1980s. Father Girzone even spoke at my parish (the leaders of whom created a schismatic church in the 1990s - no surprise).

Father Girzone - retired due to ill-health - seemed like a nice man.

But I hated the book. I thought it superficial, simplistic and inaccurate. And it advocated things counter to church teachings. My ex-wife liked it. She went with the schism.

That book was followed by more of the same ilk.

At the library the other day I discovered they'd made a movie of the first book. With the same guilty feeling one gets at having to look at an accident as you drive past, I borrowed the movie.

It did have two actors whom I've seen do some good things - F. Murray Abraham, and Gian Carlo Giannini. So I had a faint hope that maybe ...

We watched it last night.

I have to admit - it was even worse that the book.

My current wife commented that it seemed like a made-for-television movie.

I think that's an insult to made-for-television movies.

Oh, it did have that bad-made-for-kids-television-movie feel. Black and white characters. Overacting and overreacting. Over-simplistic. Predictable plot. Inaccurate about the way the church works. And there's some funny blunders - like the dead man who is visibly breathing, or the blind woman clearly wearing contacts, or a characer taking off the same garment twice in the same scene.

I found myself trying to suppress smiles.

Too bad it wasn't an intentional comedy.