The film opens with a dedication to Maurice Pialat and an almost subliminal image of the French director. One assumes that the reference is to Pialat's Sous le Soleil de Satan (1987) based on a novel by Georges Bernanos, although the religion in this movie is not much connected with the grim, humorless, somber Catholicism of Bernanos.
The interlocutors are Evelyn, in her forties, a professor of Catholic Theology and her younger sister Virginia, who was ejected from a religious cult and was just picked up by social workers in a park and returned to their parents' New York apartment. Virginia refuses any communication with her parents, who seem to be strangely uninvolved and just expect Evelyn to get Virginia out of their hands.
The scenario of the conversation is the family country house. Virginia opens up and she and her sister discuss their different takes on religion. If this evokes any French director, it would be Bresson. Evelyn is in the process of paring her beliefs down to the indispensable and facing her discrepancies with Catholic doctrine, while Virginia explains her own beliefs, which connect with religion in vastly different, mostly outlandish (?) ways. Through snatches of the conversation we learn about the family's past, the sisters' toxic childhood and their parents antirreligious fanaticism, probably the origin of Evelyn's and Virginia's childhood faith, evolved in different ways.
The title All the Ships at Sea refers to journalist Walter Winchell's fifties radio show that began with the catchphrase "Good evening, Mr. And Mrs. America from border to border and coast to coast and all the ships at sea. Let's go to press." The show is mentioned by Evelyn in passing. In the context of this movie the title may mean "inclusion of everybody" or, perhaps it is related with being at sea, lost, disoriented.
I enjoyed every minute of this conversation. The dialogue is a times too literary (especially from Evelyn) but remember, she is a professor. A fascinating movie.
