Review of Apostasy (2017) by Les R — 03 Aug 2018

Gripping story! There are flaws in the story-telling (the death of the younger sister was clumsily handled) but the central themes of entrapment within a religious belief system, the emotional hold it exerts and the cost of trying to escape all came across strongly.

The beginning was quite off-putting. It seemed drab and the script was banal. The lack of music added to the gloom. No doubt the director wanted to be realistic (the Dardenne brothers eschew music for that reason too), but music adds to the emotive effect of the story and the film is a fictional narrative, not a documentary.

So that was another flaw, but it was far from fatal.

The acting was good and brought the characters to life. It is clear that the mother is too far gone to ever escape, which is sad because she responds to the baby as a grandparent does naturally - but the daughter has escaped, albeit into a tough world where her mother's help would make a huge difference.

What I liked most was that the film let us see things for ourselves without preaching at us - eg we see the male chauvinists in charge of the church, the daughter rebels against their oppressive rules, but it is not spelled out for us in terms of gender - we simply feel the injustice of it all.

Well worth seeing.