Sundance Review: Ricky D’Ambrose’s ‘The Cathedral’
Rarely has a filmmaker kept his central character at such a distance as writer-director Ricky D’Ambrose does in The Cathedral. This is clearly an autobiographical work in some very important ways, and no doubt a purging of some demons as well. And yet the kid here, whose life the film follows from birth to his acceptance at college, has very few lines of dialogue and for the most part remains a cipher. All the same, this is a penetrating look at childhood that, distinctively, focuses more than anything on the foibles and shortcomings of the child’s parents, particularly his father.