Hold the pea soup and the spinning heads. The Exorcism of Emily Rose wants to sell us an exorcism yarn of ideas, as medicine v faith is debated in the trial of a rural Catholic priest accused of the negligent death of a college student during an exorcism. Did her medication for epilepsy prevent the banishing of demons or did she die because she was not given her required dosage?

Everybody has demons in this film. Father Moore (Tom Wilkinson) believes he acted on the side of the angels. His workaholic, agnostic defence attorney (Laura Linney) gets mildly spooked into believing in the Devil. The churchgoing prosecutor (Campbell Scott) finds himself backed into the corner of having to scoff at the will of God.

As the film mixes courtroom testimony with flashbacks, we see Emily Rose (Jennifer Carpenter) attend what looks like Hell University, where it’s always dark and stormy outside, buildings glow in dark-red spotlights and the students look hollow-eyed and malnourished when they’re not looking like ghouls in her eyes.

When possessed, Carpenter has powerful lungs and a penchant for what looks like masochistic yoga but Emily remains a victim to us rather than a person. Any tension is undercut by always returning to the leisurely, sterile court proceedings.

The film, very loosely based on a Seventies exorcism case in Germany, owes much to Linney’s elegantly steely presence. But the script has some silly lines, a vital defence witness is dispatched with all the subtlety of a Wile E. Coyote mishap, and the director, Scott Derrickson, is over-fond of sudden noises and over-ominous music. He’s never able to raise the debate to a more personal or dramatic level; rather than show Campbell’s DA wrestling with his own beliefs, he simply becomes a courtroom-movie pitbull.

When Campbell objects to a defence testimony on the ground of silliness, you might well agree.

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