Padre Pio (2022) Hollywood pariah plays pious friar in pandering prayer for pity (Review)

Tales of redemption can come in many forms. The Bible is full of them, from Noah to Moses, depicting flawed individuals picking themselves up and striding into the divine light of the Lord. Hollywood redemption stories are a different kettle of fish. Since 2017, the culture has changed, and victims of abuse have empowered themselves to talk more freely about the hardship they have faced, and the accused (often rightfully) have to reassess their behaviour and find a way to earn the forgiveness of the most damning judge of all: their audience. Shia LaBeouf is one such figure, having struggled with addiction and received abuse allegations across a tumultuous career that has seen him go from Michael Bay to Lars von Trier in frequent attempts to reinvent himself. His latest is Padre Pio, a slight biopic of the venerated Capuchin friar that mirrors LaBeouf’s own efforts to clean up his act.

Abel Ferrara’s take on Pio sees him recuperating from a sickness in the small town of San Giovanni Rotondo in 1920, struggling with visions of Satan himself taunting him about causing World War I. At the same time, veterans from the frontlines return to their wives, bearing battle scars that range from missing eyes to missing legs. It’s a sad scene, fraught with regret and frustration, yet a glimmer of hope emerges with the growing popularity of socialism within the area. This movement rubs up against the local landlords, led by the loathsome Gerardo (Marco Leonardi) who sets out to undermine the empowered serfs any which way he can. Yet what can Pio do but sit in his monastery and pray while the grip of evil retightens itself around the throats of his people?

Anyone familiar with Ferrara’s later work will know he’s returning to a similar vein of loose, scrappy formalism that he dabbled in during his emergence in the late 70s. With the power of digital cameras, he’s been able to shoot more cheaply, freely and experimentally, none more so than with his previous feature, Zeros and Ones, an impenetrable nocturnal conspiracy thriller shot in a deserted Rome in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. His style is low-fi to put it mildly, and a far cry from the slick, almost classical fare of his 90s peak with King of New York. Padre Pio feels stuck between those two modes; he ends the film with an earnest dedication to the people of Ukraine, and his stylistic urgency frequently yells for justice as he depicts tragic atrocities doled out towards the working man. However, a lack of real narrative thrust to Pio or the people’s stories leaves the entire venture frictionless, and keeping the shepherd and his flock almost entirely separate throughout leaves LaBeouf at an unfortunate disconnect from the material that doesn’t work even as a healthy measure of Brechtian distance.

There is much to be said about LaBeouf’s attempt at absolution, from doing the film for free to his intense research period that started with him sleeping in Pio’s bedroom to finally and publicly converting to the Catholic faith at the end of 2023. Whether or not he really has seen the face of God, there’s a distinct emptiness to his presence at the centre of this work, keeping his American accent while a cast of Italians work hard to deliver their dialogue in English. If it didn’t work for Joaquin Phoenix in Napoleon, it definitely doesn’t work for LaBeouf in this dull affair, and frequent bouts of scolding sinners that oscillate between commands of proclaiming “Christ is Lord!” and telling confessors to “Shut the fuck up!” don’t land as anything other than a sore thumb of a performance.

Quite amazing, then, that there is a sorer, positively infected thumb jutting out of the film at an even more violent angle. People baffled at LaBeouf’s commitment to the role and its religion will be even more stunned to see Asia Argento turn in a one-scene performance as a guilty father confessing sexual urges towards his daughter. Argento as a figure is intensely problematic, having initially been a bastion of the #MeToo movement before being outed as a sexual predator who assaulted and intoxicated a 17 year old after having previously directed them as a small child. Argento appearing as such a ghoulish presence here is startling enough, but when she begins to beg forgiveness to another problematic Hollywood figure for the very crime she has admitted to in real life, any legitimacy of Ferrara’s left-wing vision is erased by the full force of misjudged clemency for not just one, but two questionable industry outcasts. Whether Argento or LaBeouf can adequately atone for their actions is up for debate, yet all the same, hijacking a mournful, timely drama to beg for mercy is certainly not the time to do it.

It’s difficult to be left with anything but a bad taste in the mouth by Padre Pio, made worse by its lifeless illustration of class struggle and internal turmoil. Next for LaBeouf is Megalopolis, the self-funded epic passion project of Francis Ford Coppola, another towering figure of 70s cinema entering his golden years. His journey from this to that is sure to be a rocky one, and even though Ferrara has given LaBeouf a chance to purify his image with an occasionally risky character piece, it resembles a fumbled, muttered, half-hearted prayer to a court of public opinion far more ruthless than any holy father.

Simon’s Archive – Padre Pio