As this documentary opens, Toledo fireman Tony Comes and his family find a rude surprise awaiting them in the neighborhood where they've just bought a home. Five houses down the street lives Dennis Gray, the former priest who molested Tony when he was a boy. Tony eventually becomes one of the leaders of Toledo's community of abuse survivors, and this movie follows the story of his lawsuit against Gray and the Toledo diocese of the Catholic Church.
By now, we've all heard the stories from almost every American city. The Church systematically covered up abuse by its clergy, knowingly left priests in positions where they'd be working with children and teens, and used every legal loophole at its disposal to avoid admitting the truth. Too often, the media presents the survivors as obsessive kooks, out to destroy a beloved institution.
What this movie does is to present one story in detail, and allow those facts to speak for themselves. It's abundantly clear how Comes is still affected by his molestation, and that everyone around him is also struggling with the aftereffects. In one of the movie's most heartbreaking scenes, Comes explains to his nine-year-old daughter what happened to him as a boy and that she must avoid the man who did it now that they are neighbors.
Comes and his wife, who converted to Catholicism when they married, discuss whether they should remain in the church; I'd have liked to see more of that discussion, because it's never quite clear why they choose to stay in an institution that has done them such wrong.
Twist of Faith was one of last year's Oscar-nominated documentaries. It's been playing on HBO for the last few weeks, and will have a theatrical release in larger cities this summer. It's a fine and important movie.
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