Reviewed by Justin Bateman
Stars Scot Williams, Cara Seymour, Hugh Sachs, Chris O’Neill, Alison Cain, Victoria Aitken, Brett Findlay
Written by Maeve Murphy
Produced by Colin McKeown, Helen L Alexander & Maeve Murphy
Certification UK 15 | US X
Runtime 78 minutes
Directed by Maeve Murphy
Recently released from prison, Irish former priest Sheamy (Williams) comes to London to find his mentor Father Brendan (Sachs). Unable to do so immediately and with nowhere to stay, he calls distant cousin Rory (O’Neill), who shares a flat with Katie (Seymour). Sheamy and Katie discover an instant mutual attraction and a hesitant relationship begins. Hesitant because Katie is a recovering rape victim and Sheamy was abused by Father Brendan some years before.
While Beyond The Fire is by no means the first film to tackle the sensitive topic of child abuse, it is certainly one of the first to look at sexual abuse within the Catholic church and rape in the same story. As such, it’s a brave and ambitious undertaking from Northern Irish writer/director Maeve Murphy. There’s no doubt at all that this is precisely the sort of story that needs telling and to as wide an audience as possible. But getting the balance right between entertaining and educating is always a challenge, and one that Murphy doesn’t quite pull off.
Murphy said she wanted to write a love story of two wounded people with “a shared understanding of pain.” However, as the film explores and explains, their respective pain is very different. Katie confronts her rape as pragmatically as she can, even going as far as ‘celebrating’ the anniversary of the event as a sort of catharsis. Meanwhile, Sheamy has repressed exactly what has happened to him and is confused (or rather brainwashed) by what he can remember, thinking of his abuse as love “in the presence of god.” So while there’s a lot of pain, there’s very little in the way of understanding until the end, at which point things are wrapped up neatly when a darker denouement might have been more effective.
Scot Williams is the pick of the small cast, although all of them struggle occasionally with the dialogue which at times seems overly theatrical, something not helped by an abundance of meaningful looks and pauses. In tackling such a big topic head-on, there’s no room for any sub-plot which would have provided some welcome respite from the earnestness on show. But despite coming across as somewhat melodramatic, Beyond The Fire is a thought-provoking take on a difficult subject.
• Beyond The Fire at IMDb
• Beyond the Fire is showing at the ICA, London, from 17-18 and 20-21 June. Details can be found here