‘Our Father, The Devil’ Review – An Impressive Exploration Of Trauma And Redemption

There are only a handful of first time directors that have the ability to tackle major emotional themes effectively on their first go. Oftentimes they might choose style over substance by attempting to pull some flashy camera moves or other choices to draw the audience in. This is not the case for this film. Writer-director Ellie Foumbi’s feature debut, Our Father, the Devil, follows the life of Marie (Babetida Sadjo), the head chef at a retirement home in France. One day a new priest, Father Patrick (Souleymane Sy Savané), arrives at the retirement facility, and Marie remembers him from a dark part of her past. As his presence persists, Marie faces an internal battle of what to do about him before it’s too late. 

The film features one of the strongest performances of the year from Babedita Sadjo as Marie. The role really allows her to show off an impressive range of emotion that continues to crescendo until the very end. While the performance portrays a lot of rage and hurt that comes from Marie’s past, Sadjo also shows the character’s struggle with how she feels about her own actions as well as considering giving Father Patrick a second chance. The movie itself rests on Sadjo’s shoulders, but it would be a disservice to ignore Souleymane Sy Savané’s impact on the tone and intensity of the story. He perfectly blends his performance as the kind Father Patrick with the evil persona of his life before he became a priest. He plays up the priestly role so well that the viewer is liable to think Marie is out of her mind in the early parts of the film.

Our Father explores truly fathomless questions and themes throughout its entirety. Chief among them is forgiveness in the midst of deep hurt and wrongdoing. Once it’s revealed what horrors were done to Marie, it seems out of the question that she might forgive her perpetrator. Yet, much of the film zeroes in on this possibility. Marie has a particular conversation with her favorite resident regarding the nature of forgiveness and second chances that get the wheels turning in her brain. This struggle for Marie forces the audience to ask themselves what the limits on forgiveness are and who can be redeemed from what they’ve done in the past. 

Two primary locations are used in this film that effectively display the two sides of Marie. There’s the small mountain town with walkable streets and people she knows and talks to regularly. This is where her normal life is found, and things seem fine to those looking on. Some ways away from this little town lies a cabin at the edge of a cliff that is handed down to Marie by a resident who changes her will for her. In this cabin her darkest motivations and emotions are played out in a major way. The cabin is truly representative of the place inside Marie where she has tried for so long to hide the pain and trauma she experienced as a child. Perhaps the most compelling piece of drama is when these two parts of Marie’s life collide as it becomes more and more difficult to keep the past from bleeding into the present. 

Our Father, The Devil is the epitome of a slow burn thriller and finds a fresh way to explore trauma, forgiveness, and second chances. The script and direction from Ellie Foumbi is impressive for a first feature, and the script is further bolstered by the performances of the two leads. The story is deeply moving and prompts the audience to consider the effects of their past hurts and think of opportunities to forgive or let go of these things as a way to move forward. No one is simply defined by their past actions, but they cannot be separated from them either. The film calls us to find the balance of these two realities as we move through life in a grief-stricken and traumatic world.

Our Father, The Devil is currently playing in select theaters courtesy of Cineverse and Fandor. 

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78fhZz1ymbs]