Miracle Worker

IN AN AGE when even the Church is skeptical of miracles, it's not easy being a miracle worker. Especially if you're an atheist. Just ask nonbeliever Vie Mathews (Tom Conti), whose own divine favor--or is it just luck?--is making his life miserable.

Gospel According to Vic

Written and directed by Charles Gormley

At the USA Copley

With Vic. Writer/director Charles Gormley follows the recipe of fellow Scotsman Bill Forsyth, whose warm, mild comedies Local Hero and Gregory's Girl have been well-received in the United States. His recipe: take a potentially meaty theme, don't overwork it and sour the comedy, add a bunch of offbeat characters and sprinkle in some quirky but subtle sight-gags and one-liners. Gently stir the mixture and simmer over low heat, and serve in a picturesque Scottish background.

Gormley does an adequate job with the recipe, following it slavishly without adding much new to it. His theme is the struggle between faith and doubt, but he is careful not to resolve it or even allow it to become too heavy and ponderous, since to do so would spoil the laughs.

MUCH OF the burden for keeping the comedy light falls on the shoulders of Conti, the reluctant miracle worker who doesn't believe in miracles. Fortunately Conti, a veteran of many a similar off-the-wall role, proves up to the task. His wry facial expressions, his bedraggled stray-dog appearance and his dry, brittle voice seem appropriate for the exasperated yet ever-jocular Vic.

Poor Vic is hounded on all sides, by his fellow teachers and administrators at Glasgow's Blessed Edith Semple school, by the media, by priests who would like to credit his miracles to the intervention of the school's namesake in order to have her declared a saint (she already has one miracle to her credit; she needs two more for sainthood), by other priests who would like to dismiss his miracles because he is an atheist and by doctors who want to examine his remarkable recuperative abilities. Vic falls off a 40-foot building and suffers only cuts and bruises. He is not even aware that the has an inoperable brain tumor that has spontaneously gone into remission.

Everyone wants a piece of Vic, who only wants to teach kids with his own methods, which are so effective that they, too, are considered miraculous of the new music teacher, Ruth Chancellor (Helen Mirren).

THE OTHER well-drawn and well-portrayed characters are what make this comedy work, but Gormley also gets mild laughs by throwing in a few don't-blink-or-you'll-miss-'em slight-gags and one-liners also Forsyth. "The language at this school is fookin' atrocious," a student complains to Vic. When a bank taller asks Father Cobb for his identification, he responds with a puzzled look and points to his clerical collar. In the waiting room at the Vatican, there is an Orthodox Jew.

By following the Forsyth formula to the letter, Gormley produced a pleasant, Forsyth-like comedy. It would have been interesting, though, to see what would have happened if Gormley had taken a few risks and added a little spice to the recipe. Gospel According to Vic is not at all adventuresome and offers little philosophical meat to chew on. But despite its religious theme, it doesn't really aspire to philosophical heights. What it is a pleasant, two-hour diversion.