"There be Dragons."

Godstuff has a review of the new film "There be Dragons."

In Joffe’s at times uneasy cinematic marriage of a historical epic and an intimate character study, the audience does come away with a message. But it’s about human frailty and divine grace, not piety or religious zeal.


The film’s protagonist is the antihero Manolo Torres, a fictitious childhood friend of Escriva, whose story is woven with Escriva’s throughout their lives. The two start out more or less on even ground as children in pre-war Spain.

Escriva’s father, a tender and pious man, owns a chocolate factory before losing his business and going bankrupt. The family clings to a simple faith through the death of several children and the bankruptcy of his business. The first mass Escriva celebrates as a priest is for his father’s funeral.

Torres’ father also owns a factory, albeit a far more successful one, and is a far less gracious soul than the elder Escriva. The elder Torres is judgmental, violent and given to fits of rage. While Escriva’s father serves God and family, Torres’ father worships mammon and considers his workers to be “scum.”

“My dad had more money, more cars, more houses, but Josemaria had more dad,” Manolo Torres says in a voiceover early on in the film. “A seed of envy began to grow in me. In a child’s heart many seeds are planted. You never know quite what will grow.”

Both young men end up in the Catholic seminary — a short-lived career move for Torres, but a holy vocation for Escriva. That’s where their paths diverge, only to be brought together time and again by the unfolding of history.

Neither Torres nor Escriva is depicted as fully saint or sinner. Escriva, in particular, is portrayed as a man whose heart belonged to God but whose feet were firmly planted on earth. He possesses an immovable faith and steady moral compass. He also has a tempe, a great sense of humor, and ample joie de vivre.

You can get a real sense of that "sense of humor" and "joie de vivre" from this clip of St. Josemaria counseling a Jewish girl on conversion: