Bizarre drama from Brazil projects a dystopian near-future for that country in which the evangelical group of the title has infiltrated the supposedly still secular government, leading it to encourage fertility and discourage divorce. One of the sect’s devoted followers, a bureaucrat (Dira Paes), uses her professional position to cajole couples preparing to split to stay together but finds her faith tested by her and her husband’s (Julio Machado) inability to conceive. Wrongheaded in its values and at times pornographic, director and co-writer Gabriel Mascaro’s anti-populist parable begins with a paranoid attack on a version of Christianity no sensible believer would recognize (the cult practices a form of marriage therapy that involves ritual adultery) and moves on toward a twisted conclusion. In Portuguese. Subtitles. Blasphemous plot developments, excessively graphic portrayals of aberrant adulterous sex and marital lovemaking with full nudity, medical gore, a mild oath. The Catholic News Service classification is O — morally offensive. Not rated by the Motion Picture Association.
Divine Love
