Absolution is a 1978 thriller directed by Anthony Page with a screenplay written by Anthony Shaffer.
It is set in a Catholic school for boys, and focuses on the growing conflict between the humorless, stern priest Father Goddard (Richard Burton) and his erstwhile favorite pupil Benjamin Stanfield (Dominic Guard).
While Goddard has high hopes for Stanfield as a future priest, taking the time to privately tutor him and otherwise giving him attention denied to other students, Stanfield starts to resent being perceived as Goddard's favorite by his fellow students and wants to assert his independence. His resentment is further egged on by his friendship with Blakey (Billy Connolly), a free-spirited drifter on a motorcycle who lives out of a tent in the woods behind the school.
Angry and jealous of Blakey's influence, Father Goddard has him thrown off the school grounds and forbids Stanfield to socialize with him. In turn, Stanfield goes from being Goddard's favorite student to a trouble-maker playing cruel pranks on his would-be mentor, such as telling lies about various (non-existent) sins and crimes he allegedly committed during confession just to torment the priest.
Their conflict is further escalated and takes a much more sinister turn as a result of both Stanfield and Goddard's interactions with another student, Arthur Dyson (Dai Bradley). Dyson is an outcast due to both his physical handicap (he wears a leg brace) and his emotionally needy, sycophantic personality. He's an object of contempt to fellow students and faculty alike, and he's treated especially cruelly both by Father Goddard and by Benjie, both of whom detest him for his servile behavior and abject need for attention and recognition.
The film has no connection to the Absolution comics.
This film provides examples of:
- Abhorrent Admirer: A non-sexual, non-romantic example (at least not explicitly or consciously) of Arthur Dyson towards both Benjamin Stanfield and Father Goddard. Dyson desperately wants their approval and attention - Stanfield as a friend and Goddard as a parent figure, but both Stanfield and Father Goddard find Dyson's clingy and needy behavior repulsive and thus reject and humiliate him. This turns out to be a bad mistake on their part, since they have no idea of how vindictive and mentally unstable Dyson is.
- Asshole Victim: Neither Stanfield, who is murdered nor Father Goddard, who is driven to commit the murder, thus ruining his life, are likable people. Both are extremely arrogant and show gratuitous cruelty both to one another and to Dyson.
- The Atoner: Father Goddard attempts to be this when he realizes that his cruel treatment of Arthur Dyson resulted in Arthur's psychopathic criminal behavior by offering to confess to the murders in place of Dyson. However, Dyson won't even give Goddard the satisfaction of making this sacrifice on his behalf.
- The Bad Guy Wins: Dyson's revenge plot against Stanfield and Father Goddard worked perfectly - with Stanfield dead and Father Goddard destined for prison or an insane asylum. Moreover, he will almost certainly get away with murdering Blakey, because Father Goddard wouldn't dare violate the confidentiality of confession.
- Beware the Quiet Ones: Dyson is timid, spineless, and obsequious both towards Stanfield and Father Goddard. He later murders Blakey and convinces Goddard that Stanfield is to blame, leading to Stanfield's murder.
- Black-and-Grey Morality: Dyson is a murderer who frames Stanfield for Blakey's death, which he uses to manipulate Goddard into killing Stanfield. However, while neither Father Goddard nor Stanfield are quite as psychopathic or as depraved as Dyson, they are themselves cruel and completely unsympathetic characters.
- Blithe Spirit: Blakey is this to Stanfield - he serves as an example of a fun-loving free spirit who lives life the way he wants to, without the strictures of authority or religion like those in the Catholic school Stanfield attends.
- Boarding School: The story takes place at a Catholic boarding school for boys.
- Chekhov's Skill: In an early scene, Dyson does a very good impersonation of Father Goddard's voice and tone. He uses it later to mimic Stanfield's voice in the confession booth to make it look like Stanfield was responsible for the murder of Blakey and other crimes.
- Chromosome Casting: Takes place at a boy's Catholic school, the main characters are a priest and his students. The only female characters appear very briefly: Blakey's girlfriend in one scene, as well as an older woman who has some admnistrative role at the school (and barely has any lines).
- Disproportionate Retribution:
- The two police officers who beat Blakey into a bloody pulp for trespassing and petty theft.
- Dyson hatches a plot that results in Stanfield's death and Father Goddard being responsible for the murder, all because Stanfield and Goddard found him irritating and treated him with contempt.
- The Dog Bites Back: After being treated as an object of contempt by both his classmates and Father Goddard, Arthur Dyson exacts a revenge that ends in Stanfield being murdered by Father Goddard.
- Downer Ending: Blakey and Stanfield are dead - the first murdered by Dyson, the second by Father Goddard (thanks to Dyson's trickery). Goddard is unable to do anything to bring Dyson to justice because of the sanctity of confidentiality during confession, so most likely he will take the blame for both his own crimes and Dyson's and thus spend the rest of his life in prison or a mental institution.
- Driven to Madness: What ultimately happens to Father Goddard after he murders Stanfield, and later recognizes that Stanfield was not guilty of killing either Blakey or Dyson. In the final scene, he's left wailing helplessly in his Church.
- Everyone Has Standards: Even though Father Goddard despises Dyson and treats him with cruel contempt, he's absolutely horrified when he's deceived into thinking that Stanfield is trying to murder Dyson, at which point he does what he can to protect him.
- Evil Cripple: Arthur Dyson has to wear a leg brace to walk. He also murdered Blakey and framed Stanfield out of vengeful spite.
- Faking the Dead: Dyson makes it seem as though Stanfield murdered him - first by faking Stanfield's voice in the confession booth as well as having buried Blakey's corpse with his own (Dyson's) leg brace while being absent from school.
- Four Eyes, Zero Soul: Dyson wears glasses and is revealed to be a vindictive, psychopathic murderer.
- The Friend Nobody Likes: Stanfield and other other boys despise Arthur Dyson and only grudgingly let him tag along in their social group.
- Hollywood Atheist: According to Dyson, Stanfield rejected his Catholic faith before his death, and would thus damned to Hell for his apostasy.
- Karma Houdini: Dyson will never be revealed to be the one who murdered Blakey by Goddard because of the sanctity of confession, and will thus go unpunished.
- Kick the Dog: The two police officers don't just run Blakey off the school grounds for vagrancy and petty theft. They beat him up and, for good measure, break his guitar and other possessions.
- Meaningful Name: Lampshaded by Blakey's girlfriend in an ironic way, who points out that it's appropriate to have a priest named "Goddard".
- Morton's Fork: Because a priest is bound by the confidentiality of confession, Father Goddard cannot give the police an honest account of how Dyson killed Blakey, put the blame on Stanfield, faked his own death, and drove Goddard to murder Stanfield. If Goddard tells the truth, he violates his own vows and in his belief system is Hell-bound. His other alternatives are to lie and take on all of the blame himself and wind up in a hospital or an insane asylum, or else commit suicide - which would be equally sinful.
- Police Brutality: The two policemen who are sent to run Blakey off the premises where he's illegally camped give him a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown and then break his banjo and few other possessions out of spite.
- Sinister Minister: Father Goddard seemed to be troubled and cruel man even before Stanfield (and later Dyson) started tormenting him. In one scene, he tells Dyson that he should thank his lucky stars that he wasn't born centuries earlier when cripples would just be left outside to die of exposure rather than being tended to. Of course, later Goddard's dark side is unleashed still further when he beats Stanfield to death with a shovel.
- Teacher's Pet: Benjamin Stanfield starts out as this to Father Goddard, and even considers following in his teacher's footsteps to become a priest. He later rebels against Goddard and the Church, partly on his own initiative and partly due to Blakey's influence.
- The Unfavorite: While Father Goddard is stern and unfriendly towards most of his students, he reserves a special loathing for Dyson, not for his physical handicap, but for his perceived spinelessness and obsequious, needy behavior.
- World of Jerkass: None of the characters are likable. Father Goddard and Stanfield are equally cruel, Dyson is portrayed as repulsively needy, and later reveals his violent, psychopathic side. Blakey seems pleasant enough at first, but he's still a thief and a trouble-maker. Most of the lesser characters, such as the two police who beat Blakey to a pulp and break his few possessions, are equally bad.
