So far it sounds like something John Hughes might have pulled off after ill-advisedly attending an Ingmar Bergman retrospective. But Shyamalan, for whom this story is loosely autobiographical, glows, for better and worse, with earnestness while retaining the skewed trace of apostasy typical of Catholic-school veterans. The latter sensibility is embodied in the weirdo student whose kidnapping of a portrait of the pope leads to one of Joshua's epiphanies. It's furthered by O'Donnell, whose appearance is brief, restrained, and thornily hilarious in a tête-à-tête with Joshua about his quest.