Graças a Deus

This film deals with a French topical subject with subtlety and sensitivity: in a general way, the trial of the Catholic Church against pedophilia and more particularly, that of Father Preynat and Cardinal Barbarin. It highlights an anger (and/or a deep malaise, according to the characters) at first latent then more and more perceptible. The analogy with the American movie Spotlight: Segredos Revelados (2015) is obvious, the main subject being the same; but the way of revealing the truth differs.

As a synthesis: very good actors directed by a François Ozon as sober as efficient.

This film would have been better as a documentary, as concrete people do not mix very well with fictionalised characters. That the characters are mainly composites, leaves a lot of choice for the director, Francois Ozon, to omit certain areas. Two examples; the wife of one of the characters suffered sexual abuse but not within the church. She has only a very short time to admit this to another victim played excellently by Swann Arlaud. In the scenario of this film, only heterosexual males are singled out, and this becomes evident in a key scene, again given too little screen time. That of a character called Didier played superbly by Pierre Lottin (the screen suddenly came vividly to life). He is a youngish man wrecked by the church and its hierarchy, and the sexual offence committed against him by a priest as a child. He has lost outwardly and inwardly, even condemning his own homosexual brother who committed suicide because of a similar assault. He is homophobic and real whereas the others, and there are three who are concentrated on, do not venture into that taboo and unfortunately believable area. Melvil Poupard is initially the main character, well adjusted but disturbed. The focus then shifts towards a second and ultimately to a third, excellently portrayed by Swann Arlaud. Like Didier he has lost out because of church sexual abuse, but he does find a sort of release in joining in with the others when a decision is made to prosecute the church. Personally I found him as well as Didier to be burning indictments of the Catholic Church and its hierarchy. France holds its church highly in its societal and cultural life, but I wished that Ozon in his rather cold direction had stoked the fire against the church more, and allowed other voices than the heterosexual male to do so. A good film that in my opinion could have been longer and risked audience impatience (Jacques Rivette did it before him in other subject matter to great respect). In doing so he could have taken the risk to include in his fictional area the sufferings of other sexualities when they are abused, especially by an institution that cements so much of France together.

This movie details the story of each main character, but it ends up being very long.

The story is good and compelling, I have no doubt that it happened in real life, it has excellent character development but that makes the film very long. The movie is basically about even though the sexual abuse stories are different, they have many things in common, including the trauma it leaves the victims and how their entire lives change because of it. The ending seemed very weak compared to the development of the stories, it was not very satisfactory. This film is also a critique of the silence of the church in the face of complaints of sexual abuse by priests and how these complaints are treated in the religious community and in society in general.

It may seem boring and pointless, but for me it is a story of courage, trauma and admiration for the victims who speak out.

Even though the movie doesn't keep up the pace all the time, is great, very emotional without being stupid. And please do not send you children to church or to boy scout camps.

This is a very important film, discussing important area of French politics. There is much care and great resolve for the things depicted on screen. I'm unsure if I could watch it again because it is a very hard film to watch, but I fascinated by the way it all unfolded. Great look in-depth