‘Suarez: The Healing Priest’ review: Beyond healing

Let’s just do away with the obvious.

Joven Tan’s Suarez: The Healing Priest is an awful film.

Haphazardly crafted

Like a lot of Tan’s films, it is haphazardly crafted.

The visuals are dull. The editing makes the narrative incongruous without adding anything to whatever artistic merit the film aspires for. The aural design is inconsistent. 

However, one doesn’t really watch Tan’s films to be mesmerized by craft. The appeal of Tan’s films lies in the bits and pieces that preoccupy him as a filmmaker appearing as a nagging and sometimes intriguing undercurrent in his otherwise simplistic narratives. 

Suarez: The Healing Priest surprisingly occupies the same thematic space as Echoserang Frog (2014), Pansamantagal (2019), and And Ai, Thank You (2019), where characters are dealt with the various repercussions of fame and celebrity. In the film, Father Suarez (John Arcilla) is embattled by accusations of molestation while dodging harassment by the Catholic Church’s bureaucracy. 

Tan proceeds from the usual components of a biography, detailing the younger years of the titular priest from when he was pledging to uplift his family from poverty to his sudden decision to join the Church. However, it is apparent that Tan is more interested in the intrigue surrounding the persona he has been tasked to cover, surrounding the story with varying perspectives, starting from the man himself, to the establishment that fears his uncommon ways, to the media who values him not for what he represents but for his currency and influence which they can mine for ratings.

Creating facets out of one person

Now this is where Suarez ultimately falters. 

While this attempt to create facets out of one person is laudable, it is apparent that Tan is bound to serve the purpose of painting the priest in a good light, if not the best light. This prevents Suarez from asking the right questions and answering the questions it is able to ask in the least controversial manner possible. In the end, the film only offers the most meager of possibilities and even with that, still ends up being utterly disappointing.

It has its bright spots. 

Arcilla is more than fine. 

There is this one scene in the film where Arcilla’s performance expresses a sophistication that sadly the rest of the film couldn’t sustain. Arcilla is interviewed on television and in answering one of the questions of the host, he proceeds to deliver a sermon-like response that is mesmerizing in a terrifying way as it is at once, humble, commanding, and assertive in the way only cult leaders can do. 

Tormenting tedium

Whether Arcilla’s delivery is with the understanding that the character he plays is more complex than what the easy resolutions of the film paint him, it is one of the film’s few passages that feel like ample rewards to sitting through what feels like tormenting tedium. – Rappler.com