In the Name of

A Polish priest struggles with his attraction to the young men in his care in this drama examining the Catholic Church's strictures on celibacy. Leading man Andrzej Chyra is a brooding, manly presence as Father Adam, who's transferred from Warsaw to a rural backwater, where he heads up a residential refuge for troubled youth just out of reform school. He's worldly enough to win their trust, and hunky enough to catch the eye of his lay assistant's restless wife, yet Adam's struggle to repress his sexuality reaches crisis point with the arrival of Lukasz (Mateusz Kosciukiewicz), a taciturn young man with a history of pyromania. Taking care to underline the distinction between paedophilia and the priest's homosexual desires, Malgoska Szumowska's film isn't exactly ground-breaking (think back to Jimmy McGovern's Priest in 1994), but its physical candour may still make it uncomfortable viewing for some. Restrained in its avoidance of hysterical melodrama, it's arguably just a bit too low-key, yet the convincing performances and generous understanding of all sides in this contentious arena prove engrossing and ultimately thought-provoking.