Our outer bodies may fade and decay, Mark Wahlberg explains in the movie about Father Stuart Long, but our inner lives can be renewed each day, if that is what we choose. Stuart, like the actor who portrays him, opened himself to Christ, and both men’s sincerity, humility, and devotion radiate from Father Stu, a stirring depiction of faith’s journey that will be spiritual balm for many of those who see it. For Catholics, it’s an essential film, and Christians in general will find much to rejoice over in it.
Wahlberg and Mel Gibson, a pair of Catholics who have publicly sinned and given much thought to grace and the possibility of redemption, are ideal conduits for the dramatization of the life of Stuart Long, a fast-talking Montana redneck who in the 1990s moved to L.A. to seek work as an actor after his boxing career began to wobble. Gibson plays Stuart’s abrasive dad, a bitter and sarcastic boozer who lives in a trailer park and hates God for taking Stuart’s brother Stephen as a child.
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