Church abuse cover-up laid bare in grim detail
15 cert, 138 min
★★★★★
Dir François Ozon
Starring Melvil Poupaud, Denis Ménochet, Swann Arlaud, Éric Caravaca, François Marthouret, Bernard Verley, Josiane Balasko, Martine Erhel, Hélène Vincent, Frédéric Pierrot, Aurélia Petit
It speaks to the range of France’s never-predictable François Ozon that he can follow up his silliest film – 2017’s crazed erotic thriller L’amant Double – with his most gut-wrenchingly serious. By the Grace of God is a scalding docudrama on the cover-up of child sex abuse by the Catholic Church.
Ozon is better known as an impish provocateur, jumping across genres with big stars such as Catherine Deneuve in tow – from the murdermystery pastiche of 8 Women (2002) to the trophy-wife comedy Potiche (2010). If there were ever any doubt that he was the man for this job, however, the career-topping urgency of his filmmaking sweeps it away inch by inch, sequence by methodical sequence.
The film is a dramatisation of the real story of one priest, the now elderly Father Bernard Preynat (Bernard Verley) who abused dozens – maybe as many as hundreds – of boys in Lyon. The first victim we meet is Alexandre (Ozon regular Melvil Poupaud, superb), who has buried his memories of being serially assaulted until deep into adulthood, and managed to raise five children unquestioningly in the Catholic faith.
He is driven, like many others, by seeing Père Preynat still at large – still teaching catechism to young boys, despite the warning flags that both Preynat himself and several families have waved at higher-ups over the years. (Preynat had told his superiors in the Church as well as parents that he “had a problem with children”.)
In stepping up his case when Church authorities stall, Alexandre is hobbled by the statute of limitations on criminal offences. Until French legal reforms as recently as 2017, this was a mere 20 years. How quickly were these boys, some eight or nine when they were raped, meant to set aside their shame and come forward?
Alexandre’s own parents are portrayed as barely taking him seriously when he raised the issue at 17, and then decades later accuse him of muckraking – as is the father of the profoundly traumatised Emmanuel (a riveting Swann Arlaud). Or the victims are accused of attention-seeking, as, it’s alleged, François (Denis Ménochet) is by his bitter older brother.
More recent victims such as François do, however, have a chance of bringing the priest to justice – and the real Preynat, who was defrocked in July by the Church’s ecclesiastical court, is now awaiting a criminal trial. Lyon’s archbishop, Cardinal Philippe Barbarin (François Marthouret), has also offered his entirely appropriate resignation, although it has been rejected by the Pope.
Ozon knits the complex narratives into an enthralling tapestry of testimony; for a relatively lengthy film, it is fast, focused, unrelenting. Boldest of all, he doesn’t push some idea of major solidarity among the victims, but probes beneath with brilliant subtlety at rifts and contradictions within the movement. It’s hard to imagine ever righting wrongs on this horrific scale, but in the face of such jaw-dropping willed blindness, there’s something desperately human about the fight to be seen.
By the Grace of God