Apostasy

Faith must be a nice thing to have. It sounds comforting and it seems to be a good thing to have to fall back on when life is kicking the shit out of you. An invisible safety blanket. Blind unquestioning faith is something else though. It's a dangerous way to live your life and this new film Apostasy is a damning indictment of religious groups that hold it up as something to strive for.

Alex (Molly Wright) and Luisa (Sacha Parkinson) are two teenage girls being raised by their mother Ivanna (Siobhan Finneran) as devout Jehovah's Witnesses. Ivanna is unwavering in her beliefs but her daughters are having trouble. College, friends and exposure to the wider world has opened Luisa's eyes and medical issues in the past are troubling Alex's conscience. Then Luisa drops a bombshell on the family.

This is a genuinely frightening, disturbing and rage inducing watch about life in a cult, the stupidity of unquestioning faith and how following teachings to the letter can have absolutely disastrous repercussions. In an age where fundamentalism, religious or otherwise is on the rise, it starkly shows us the end result of not questioning things, even when it's to the detriment of your health and your relationships. It's a heavy watch that will stick with you when it's over and it's a film that gives no easy answers, no relief, no catharsis. 

It sounds like a horrible watch and tbh it is but fantastic performances and an extremely intimate portrait of a family in crisis will keep you watching even when you want to grab certain characters and shake them and shout at them. It brings to mind the work of Shane Meadows in the way that the drab and mundane can become terrifying and suffocating and it's close up camera work that forces us into the faces of the people we are watching to see what they are going through. It's an eye opening look at the astonishing cruelty perpetuated by people who call themselves good. JW is an offshoot of Christianity and like all Abrahamic religions it has a patriarchal hierarchy that makes things up as it goes along. Seeing young women suffering needlessly because of familial shunning or lack of medical care will have you leaving the cinema shaking your head at the pointlessness of it all. A film that creates an emotional response this strong is always welcome even when that response is sadness and shock.

It's hard to believe this is a debut because it feels so accomplished but writer/director Daniel Kokotajlo is working from experience having grown up in the JW faith and thankfully he's gotten away from it. He doesn't go for cheap sensationalism or shock and one moment, that in other films would have been a climax, is played out in a way that lets blind faith hang itself by it's own petard. Siobhan Finneran, Molly Wright and Sacha Parkinson are all great in roles that will make you want to both scream at them and rescue them. Finneran especially showing the damage a life time of brainwashing can do to a person with her emotions straining to burst out from behind a calm exterior. Her words at the end of the film will chill you.

It's a film that will make you think twice the next time you are going to shut the door on the young people in white shirts talking about god at the front door. You won't want to convert but it will give you an appreciation of the hidden hardships they go through. It will leave you bruised but it's well worth a watch if it's on near you.