gimlet_eye
An adolescent is a young adult struggling, at first fitfully, and at last urgently, to escape the chrysalis of childhood into adulthood. It is a process that is at best awkward, and at worst destructive and even self-destructive.Ralph is an adolescent of 14 who is prematurely confronted with issues that even a boy of 17 or 18 would find daunting. He is, in essence a secret orphan who undertakes to support himself (through deceit and petty crime) in the desperate hope that by retaining his autonomy that he will somehow be able to rescue his dying mother from her fate as long as he remains in control of his own. To Father Fitzpatrick, the strict and narrow-minded priestly headmaster of the Catholic parochial school Ralph attends, the boy appears to be nothing but an authority-defying rebel, who is to be tolerated and allowed to remain on the schools rolls only out of a formal, obligatory kind of charity that recognizes the anguish of losing one's last parent. The authorities, however, have no idea that Ralph is living on his own.Ralph, though young and naive, is an intelligent, intuitive boy, who not unreasonably sees his own life hanging by the thread of his mother's life, and in any case he loves her deeply. His mind and soul is thus, given his thoroughly Catholic upbringing (his adolescent chrysalis is a typical Catholic one), fertile ground for a belief in miracles.And this isn't just an inspirational movie: it is a story about the possibility and meaning of miracles, which lie at the heart of Christianity, especially in its traditional Catholic form.That might seem to limit the movie's appeal to those of us who don't believe in miracles (at least in this modern scientific age), and the generally very positive, but at the same time slightly puzzled and critical, reactions to this movie, I think reflect this dilemma. In particular, the criticisms revolve around the miraculous, and therefore categorically unrealistic, goal that Ralph adopts as his personal quest: not just running the Boston Marathon, but winning it.To put it still more starkly, it would seem that either this is a movie that speaks primarily to Catholics who yearn for a revival of the passionate beliefs that once infused their religion, or that if the movie is intended for a more general audience, that it is significantly flawed by its unrealism.However, just as it is possible for a modern educated person (not necessarily a Christian either) to salvage the fundamental meanings of the fantastic Bible stories by reading them metaphorically, so it is possible to experience this movie as an inspirational fable that speaks to all of those who seek personal transcendence. And understood in this way, "Saint Ralph" emerges as a drama about personal transcendence through love - real Christian caritas, not formal, Pharisaic charity.Ralph himself is the fountainhead of love in this story. Yet he is in every other way a typical 14 year old male adolescent, a bit more rebellious and independent than most, perhaps, but a boy just about any of us can identify with. But he discovers in the course of the burgeoning crisis in his young life that he has a vast, heretofore untapped, reservoir of overflowing love, and at the same time an unexpected capacity for faith in himself. And this love indeed works miracles of a kind that even a non-believer can believe in and appreciate.Ralph's love spreads out from himself, first to his one or two friends, then to his would be mentor and father figure, Father Hibbard, who has been in grave danger himself, under the influence of his despotic headmaster, Father Fitpatrick, of hardening into a desiccated life as a mere functionary within a system. Hibbard reluctantly, but duteously, accepts his headmaster's commandments to stifle and regulate his own intellectuality and passions, even, directed as they are to his chosen mission in life: to develop and foster the minds, characters, and spirituality of his young charges. And in accepting this discipline, no doubt formally required by his religious order, Hibbard has kept himself on track to become another Father Fitzpatrick - a petty tyrant hated and feared, presiding over a barren realm of decorum and order, whose own residue of love is dispensed in carefully measured teaspoons.However, as Ralph's overflowing love begins to transform him into a great runner, it becomes transformative also for Father Hibbard, who like Ralph begins defying his headmaster, at first in secret, and eventually openly. In the end Ralph's love, spreading out in widening ripples, conquers all.In short, Ralph can be seen to be the modern secular equivalent of a saint, although his inspirational story is told with the faintest tinge of irony.I think that this was the intention of the creators of this movie, and if their story requires somewhat of an imaginative transformation that may not be congenial to all viewers, and certainly poses some unnecessary difficulties that may reasonably be accounted flaws, I think that the movie is on the whole a considerable success. Long distance running is a classic metaphor for life, and the movie ably captures, largely through its cinematography, the triumph of faith and joy over pain that can be achieved in that sport, which I believe from my own personal experience, comes just about as close to miraculous self-transcendence as one can hope to achieve in this life.
