‘by the Grace of God’ Review: a Devastating Film about Survivors of Abuse

By Glenn Kenny
New York Times
October 17, 2019

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/17/movies/by-the-grace-of-god-review.html

The often irreverent French director Francois Ozon gets serious with a fact-based story about a group of men who were childhood victims of a pedophile priest.

For a member of the clergy to sexually violate a child is one of the most stark and cruel betrayals imaginable. That an institution would prevaricate and dissemble about these betrayals rather than take immediate, decisive action to pursue justice and provide restitution creates a greater betrayal. After years of such actions, betrayal reaches a near-unimaginable level.

And yet. We don’t have to imagine. In the Roman Catholic Church, these violations have been rife, and the stories behind them are appalling.

In “By the Grace of God” Francois Ozon, one of France’s most brazen and talented directors, tells a story of a group of men in Lyon, all childhood victims of a pedophile priest. These adults find each other and form an organization to bring that priest and the church’s higher-ups who covered for him to account for their actions.