The Third Miracle

(Columbia TriStar)

Father Frank Shore (Ed Harris), troubled priest, and Roxane (Anne Heche), troubled daughter of a dead woman poised for sainthood, crackle with unstated lust from their first scene together, when she looks into his eyes and says, "Is this where I'm supposed to say you don't look like a priest?" Had director Agnieszka Holland brought some of that pizzazz to the rest of the movie, The Third Miracle might well have been miraculous. When a statue of the Virgin weeps blood in Chicago, a deceased local woman is prayed to as the source of the miracle. Frank is called in to debunk her claim, but the woman's credentials prove irreproachable. And then he falls for her apostate daughter Roxane. Faith demands that Frank plead Helen's case for sainthood, but love insists he ditch it all for Roxane. Although Holland has some tricks up her sleeve -- that third miracle, for example -- this is a case where the flesh is willing but the spirit is weak.