WHAT HAPPENED TO EMILY?

Erin Bruner (Laura Linney), an attorney, is assigned a case where a Catholic priest (Tom Wilkinson) faces negligent homicide charges after a failed exorcism.

This reality-based story tries to merge the horrors of The Exorcist (1973) and similar films with a courtroom drama, but the trial looks more like an unusually absurd episode of The Practice. A little too manipulated, a little too empty… and the film shows no sign of having anything to do with the allegedly factual case.

Good acting, but some of the devilish goings-on become too overheated (and even illogical). 

2005-U.S. 119 min. Color. Widescreen. Directed by Scott Derrickson. Screenplay: Scott Derrickson, Paul Harris Boardman. Cast: Laura Linney (Erin Bruner), Tom Wilkinson (Richard Moore), Campbell Scott (Ethan Thomas), Jennifer Carpenter (Emily Rose), Colm Feore, Joshua Close, Mary Beth Hurt, Shohreh Aghdashloo. 

Trivia: The German film Requiem (2006) was based on the same incident.