''By the Grace of God'' (french: Grâce à Dieu) is a 2019 French-Belgian
drama film
In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-g ...
directed by
François Ozon
François Ozon (; born 15 November 1967) is a French film director and screenwriter.
Ozon is considered one of the most important modern French filmmakers. His films are characterized by aesthetic beauty, sharp satirical humor and a free-wheeli ...
. The film stars
Melvil Poupaud
Melvil Poupaud (born 26 January 1973) is a French actor, author and filmmaker.
Career
Poupaud's first appearance was, as a child, in Raúl Ruiz (director), Raúl Ruiz's 1983 film ''City of Pirates''. He met Ruiz through his mother, Chantal Poupau ...
,
Denis Ménochet
Denis Ménochet (born 18 September 1976) is a French actor. Ménochet is known to international audiences for his role as Perrier LaPadite, a French dairy farmer interrogated by the Nazis for harboring Jews in the 2009 Quentin Tarantino film ''I ...
and
Swann Arlaud as three victims of a Catholic priest's abuse who, as adults, set out to expose
the sexual abuse hidden by the Catholic Church.
It premiered at the
69th Berlin International Film Festival
The 69th annual Berlin International Film Festival took place from 7 to 17 February 2019. French actress Juliette Binoche served as the Jury President. Lone Scherfig's drama film ''The Kindness of Strangers (film), The Kindness of Strangers'' op ...
and won the
Jury Grand Prix
The Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize (also Jury Grand Prix, Grand Prize of the Jury) is an award given by the jury at the Berlin International Film Festival to one of the feature films in competition. It is the runner-up to the Golden Bear prize an ...
. The film was released in France on 20 February 2019 and in Belgium a week later, and has received critical acclaim.
Plot
Alexandre Guérin lives in the Lyon region. A flourishing banking executive, husband of a loving wife and father of five children, he is a practicing Catholic, just like his family. One day, after a conversation with a former scout comrade like him, he remembers the sexual abuse he suffered from a pedophile priest, Father Bernard Preynat. The facts are prescribed. But, assailed by painful memories, Alexandre decides to undertake an investigation. He got in touch with the archbishop's psychologist, Régine Maire. Through her, he obtained an appointment with Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, Archbishop of Lyon. He then discovers that despite the warning of several parents, the Church has covered up the affair. Régine Maire organizes a brief confrontation between Alexandre and Father Preynat, which ends with an almost surreal common prayer. Despite the numerous emails from Alexander, the ecclesiastical authorities procrastinate and backtrack. Worse, during a mass, Alexandre finds that Father Preynat, kept in office, is still in contact with young people.
Alexandre fails to find other victims who would agree to testify. He therefore decides to file a complaint alone. Captain Courteau, who received his statement, is looking for victims for whom the facts would not be prescribed. This is how he met François, now an atheist. The latter decides to testify in front of the media and creates, for this purpose, the association La Parole Librée. Other victims join him, including the surgeon Gilles and Emmanuel, a tormented being who has serious consequences. Alexander joins them. Together, they start a legal action.
Under increasing pressure and urged to act by Régine Maire, Cardinal Philippe Barbarin organizes a press conference. But he blurts out that the facts are “thank God prescribed”. This unfortunate word shocks the audience. The association obtains the indictment of Father Preynat, who recognizes the facts. The plaintiffs hope that their action will challenge the Catholic hierarchy. But all will have been confronted with their family and with themselves. Alexandre wonders about his Christian faith.
Cast
*
Melvil Poupaud
Melvil Poupaud (born 26 January 1973) is a French actor, author and filmmaker.
Career
Poupaud's first appearance was, as a child, in Raúl Ruiz (director), Raúl Ruiz's 1983 film ''City of Pirates''. He met Ruiz through his mother, Chantal Poupau ...
as Alexandre Guérin
*
Denis Ménochet
Denis Ménochet (born 18 September 1976) is a French actor. Ménochet is known to international audiences for his role as Perrier LaPadite, a French dairy farmer interrogated by the Nazis for harboring Jews in the 2009 Quentin Tarantino film ''I ...
as François Debord
*
Swann Arlaud as Emmanuel Thomassin
*
Éric Caravaca
Éric Caravaca (born 21 November 1966) is a French actor, film director and screenwriter.François Marthouret
François Marthouret (born 12 September 1943) is a French actor.
Selected filmography
Theater
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Marthouret, Francois
1943 births
Living people
Male actors from Paris
French male film actors ...
as
Cardinal Barbarin
*
Bernard Verley
Bernard Verley (born 4 October 1939) is a French actor and producer.
Biography
Former student of les ''Beaux-Arts'' in Lille, he then joined the TNP Jean Vilar. His brother ''Renaud Verley
Renaud Verley (born 9 November 1945) is a French ac ...
as Bernard Preynat
*
Josiane Balasko
Josiane Balasko (born Josiane Balašković; 15 April 1950) is a French actress, writer, and director. She has been nominated seven times for César Awards, and won twice.
Career
One of Balasko's most recognized roles among English speakers is ...
as Irène Thomassin
*Martine Erhel as Régine Maire
*
Hélène Vincent
Hélène Vincent (born 9 September 1943) is a French actress and stage director.
Career
She received a César Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1989 for her role as Madame Marielle Le Quesnoy in ''Life Is a Long Quiet River'' and a nominati ...
as Odile Debord
*
Frédéric Pierrot
Frédéric Pierrot (born 17 September 1960) is a French actor. He has appeared in more than 120 films and television shows since 1986. He starred in the film ''Tell Me I'm Dreaming'', which was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1 ...
as Captain Courteau
*
Aurélia Petit
Aurélia Petit (18 April 1971) is a French actress. In the year 1984, Petit began her theater career. For a year, she went to theater school with the famous Niels Arestrup. Since 1993, she has been seen in French television shows and movies. In ...
as Marie Guérin
Production
Principal photography
Principal photography is the phase of producing a film or television show in which the bulk of shooting takes place, as distinct from the phases of pre-production and post-production.
Personnel
Besides the main film personnel, such as actor ...
on the film began on February 12, 2018 and lasted till April 13, 2018 in Paris, France and Belgium.
Reception
''By the Grace of God'' received largely positive reviews from critics. On
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
, it has approval rating based on reviews, with an average rating of . The website's critics consensus reads: "Patient in its approach yet stirring in its conviction, ''By the Grace of God'' draws soberly gripping cinema from real-life horror." It has a 75 out of 100 score on
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
based on 20 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
Peter Bradshaw
Peter Bradshaw (born 19 June 1962) is a British writer and film critic. He has been chief film critic at ''The Guardian'' since 1999, and is a contributing editor at ''Esquire''.
Early life and education
Bradshaw was educated at Haberdashers ...
of ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' wrote "Ozon has made a decent and valuable film, though it often seems like the drama part of a docudrama: some of the scenes feel like respectful re-enactments that could have gone into a documentary".
Film critic Tim Robey of ''
The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally.
It was fo ...
'' gave the film 5 stars out of 5, writing "If there were ever any doubt that Ozon, that impish provocateur, was the man to handle it, the career-topping urgency of his filmmaking sweeps it away inch by inch, sequence by methodical sequence". The film received similar praise from Linda Marric of ''
The Jewish Chronicle
''The'' () is a grammatical Article (grammar), article in English language, English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite ...
'', who also gave it full 5 stars and called it "A robustly acted, compassionate and honest film with moments of disarming tenderness throughout".
The Jesuit publication, ''
America
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
'' praised the director, calling his approach to the film as "masterful", while
Justin Chang
Justin Choigee Chang (born January 3, 1983) is an American film critic and columnist for the ''Los Angeles Times''. He previously worked for ''Variety''.
Early life
Justin Chang graduated from the University of Southern California in 2004. Chan ...
of the ''
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...
'' called the film as "patient, lucid,
ndgenerously human".
''
San Francisco Chronicle
The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and M. H. de Young, Michael H. de ...
''s
Mick LaSalle
Mick is a masculine given name, usually a short form (hypocorism) of Michael. Because of its popularity in Ireland, it is often used in England as a derogatory term for an Irish person or a person of Irish descent. In Australia the meaning broaden ...
was a different view. He wrote "''By the Grace of God'' begins to spin its wheels, with unnecessary scenes that give color to the events, when we're more interested in the grand movements".
Lawsuit
The priest portrayed in the film, Bernard Preynat, attempted without success to block its release in France. On 4 July 2019, an ecclesiastical tribunal of the
Archdiocese of Lyon
The Archdiocese of Lyon (Latin: ''Archidiœcesis Lugdunensis''; French: ''Archidiocèse de Lyon''), formerly the Archdiocese of Lyon–Vienne–Embrun, is a Latin Church metropolitan archdiocese of the Catholic Church in France. The Archbishops ...
announced it had determined that Preynat was "guilty of criminal acts of a sexual character on minors younger than 16" and applied its maximum penalty by
defrocking
Defrocking, unfrocking, degradation, or laicization of clergy is the removal of their rights to exercise the functions of the ordained ministry. It may be grounded on criminal convictions, disciplinary problems, or disagreements over doctrine or d ...
him. In March 2020, Preynat was convicted in the French courts of sexual assault and given a five-year prison sentence.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:By the Grace of God
French drama films
Belgian drama films
Films directed by François Ozon
Drama films based on actual events
Films about Catholic priests
Films about child sexual abuse
2019 drama films
Films about Catholicism
Films about Christianity
Films critical of the Catholic Church
Films set in Lyon
Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize winners
Films with screenplays by François Ozon
2010s French-language films
French-language Belgian films
2010s French films