THERE BE DRAGONS

THERE BE DRAGONS earns its three stars through authenticity, compelling performances, and a serious story about love, betrayal, redemption, and salvation. Its Catholic setting does not keep it from reaching beyond a Catholic audience. The film offers theological reflections, overt conversions, and a moving insight into the life of an important Christian servant.

The cost is mature content. Wartime violence and point-blank executions are filmed in the least offensive manner possible, but they remain present. A love interest sleeps with several revolutionaries to advance the revolution, though nothing is shown. Several light obscenities appear, including one during a powerful conversion scene.

If your family includes teenagers mature enough to process those elements, this is worth seeing together or discussing afterward; younger viewers need parental discernment. The practical answer: WORTH THE TRIP — TEENS AND ADULTS.

A journalist investigates the canonization of Josemaria Escrivá, founder of Opus Dei, and discovers a deeply disturbing story about his own father, Manolo.

As boys, Josemaria and Manolo were close friends. Their lives later take sharply different paths amid the Spanish Civil War, with Josemaria drawn toward the love of God and Manolo shaped by bitterness, envy, and a willingness to do almost anything. The story follows their relationship across many years.

Three stars mean this is a powerful, well-acted film with real limitations. Director Roland Joffé creates an authentic and compelling vision, and his ability to draw fine performances from the cast gives the story an aura of importance.

The film also surrounds Josemaria with fictional characters and works through universal themes of love, betrayal, and redemption over many years. Its theological reflections and conversions are compelling. One light obscenity, however, detracts from the power of a climactic conversion scene, even though it fits the character.

THERE BE DRAGONS presents a strongly Catholic Christian worldview, set during the Spanish Civil War. The film portrays several conversions and emphasizes that God loves all our labors, however insignificant, when they are dedicated to Him through kindness, patience, and other biblical character traits. Josemaria discovers that God takes joy in ordinary work, a realization that inspires him to create Opus Dei for laypeople and married couples who want to dedicate their everyday lives to God’s work.

The movie also depicts betrayal, spying, lying, envy, and other illicit behavior that is eventually rebuked. It includes positive and negative capitalist elements, positive leftist characters, and negative leftist activity in the persecution of priests. A brief flagellation scene appears among the film’s few Catholic religious moments. The dying statement, “Wait for you on the other side,” is presented as foolish because the Communist revolutionary who says it is a materialist and does not believe in an afterlife.

The film’s central longing is for redemption: whether a person shaped by bitterness can still be led back to Christ. Scripture says, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

THERE BE DRAGONS is an authentic, compelling drama with a strong Christian worldview and meaningful reflections on ordinary work, conversion, and redemption. Its mature themes and wartime violence call for discernment with younger teens. For teenagers and adults, it is WORTH THE TRIP — TEENS AND ADULTS.