David La Haye as Louis Seraphin and Ali Skovbye as Jeanne Seraphin in The Corruption of Divine Providence.Supplied
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- The Corruption of Divine Providence
- Written and directed by Jeremy Torrie
- Starring David La Haye, Elyse Levesque and Ali Skovbye
- Classification N/A; 96 minutes
Anyone who’s spent time in the isolated pockets of small-town Canada will instantly recognize the sun-bleached church slogans and pro-life signs that dot the landscape of the fictional Manitoba town of St. Michel in Jeremy Torrie’s new film, The Corruption of Divine Providence.
These decaying markers of the town’s moral road map instantly identify it as a place that wrestles with all manner of demons, from addiction to lapsed religion. It certainly signals what the family at the film’s core is struggling with.
The Corruption of Divine Providence opens with a modern day exorcism of sorts, as Danielle and Louis Seraphin’s teenage daughter Jeanne appears to be caught in the grips of a supernatural possession, claiming through a hastily scrawled note that she is being controlled by a higher power, sent to bring peace to mankind. Markings of a stigmata seem to suggest a second coming of Christ.
As the town becomes aware of these events, Jeanne becomes a local and international lightning rod for good versus evil, exemplified by how her own parents are handling their daughter’s trauma.
Tantoo Cardinal as Juniper Fairweather, left.Supplied
While her mother Danielle rejects God, retreating into herself and her garden – “that’s where I find peace,” she tells the local priest – her father, Louis, seizes on Jeanne’s possession as an opportunity to extract money from prophet-seeking locals and an avaricious American preacher in search of a new miracle he can televise.
Amongst the townspeople themselves, Catholic zealotry meets Metis mysticism, as St. Michel’s religious and Indigenous history bubbles up to the tense surface.
It all comes to a head as the truth behind Jeanne’s stigmata and her return from death are revealed in a heady church service full of snakes and secrets.
There are certainly moments of beauty in Torrie’s filmmaking, especially with Eric Cayla’s cinematography, which plays wonderfully with variations of light, taking the audience seamlessly from blinding sun to pitch darkness, capturing the visual push and pull of good and evil. The duelling ideals of morality and mysticism come together well in the script, as this small town grapples with an innate blend of religion and folklore.
And as patriarch Louis Seraphin repeatedly rejects his Métis roots for a born-again Catholicism, the sins of Canadian history are easily spotted in Torrie’s script, hidden amongst the sins of the local church and the Seraphin family.
The acting is also engaging and holds your attention, particularly Elyse Levesque as Danielle Seraphin.
However, it’s ultimately difficult to wade through the muddled plot line, or plot lines, rather, as there are so many disparate storylines contending for top billing in this movie. By the time we understand what’s behind Jeanne’s stigmata and peel back the curtain of the church’s deceptions, it seems we’re in a new movie altogether. The ending left me particularly confused.
Torrie’s intimate work on films such as 2017′s Juliana and the Medicine Fish, a tender coming-of-age story in which a 12-year-old works to repair her relationship with her father following her mother’s death, best exemplify his ability to capture beautiful stories that can have a big impact even on a small scale. But with The Corruption of Divine Providence, ultimately the writer and director is trying to do too much within the confines of the film’s 90 minutes and may have been better served simplifying the message.
The Corruption of Divine Providence is available on-demand, including Apple TV/iTunes, starting May 25
In the interest of consistency across all critics’ reviews, The Globe has eliminated its star-rating system in film and theatre to align with coverage of music, books, visual arts and dance. Instead, works of excellence will be noted with a Critic’s Pick designation across all coverage.