The Third Miracle

Father Frank Shore investigates claims of miracles on behalf of the Church, and his job is to disprove them. Most of the cases he examines fall apart, and he has lost his own faith. In Chicago a statue outside a church is said to be bleeding, and the event is attributed to a dead woman. Shore has to open a file on her canonisation, and the more he learns about her life the more complicated it becomes. The subject is not the miracle but an institution's standard of evidence. The Church is trying to disprove the miracle scientifically, the opposite of what an outsider expects, and that is the film's most interesting element. Shore works like an investigator. The form is cold and wintry. Chicago, grey sky, empty church interiors. The narration does not turn the miracle into a spectacle; even the bleeding statue is shot at a distance. Its strongest strand concerns the dead woman's daughter. While the woman is being considered for sainthood her daughter remembers a mother who abandoned her; the film does not resolve the contradiction between holiness and family. Ed Harris plays the priest, Anne Heche the daughter and Armin Mueller-Stahl the bishop sent from Rome. Agnieszka Holland directs. Who it is for: viewers who like quiet drama built on faith. Who it is not for: anyone expecting a clear answer; the film does not say whether the miracle was real.