‘Saint Ralph’ meanders through melancholy marathon
From a team of tyro Canadian film-makers led by writer director Michael McGowan comes this unabashedly hokey, innocuous morality play about a Catholic schoolboy (newcomer Adam Butcher) who believes winning the 1953 Boston Marathon is the “miracle” that doctors claim is necessary to rouse his ailing mother from a coma. As if his plight weren’t dicey enough, the poor lad’s father died in the war, he’s living alone, the tyrannical school headmaster wants to send him to an orphanage, and he keeps getting caught with his hand down his pants. But he’s got a swell support system in frocked track coach played by Campbell Scott, and Jennifer Tilly’s benevolent Nurse Alice. And after he runs the marathon, Ralph gets a standing O for his efforts. Holy melodrama! (Rated PG-13 for some sexual content and partial nudity. Running time: 98 minutes)
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 5, 2005. Read the original PDF.