Documentary Description
There’s no easy way to address a highly charged subject like the
sexual abuse of young boys by Catholic priests, but with Twist of
Faith, director Kirby Dick has taken a straightforward approach, using
neither fanfare nor frills to create an unflinching but highly personal
documentary about this disgraceful episode. The 2004 film’s focus is on
one place, Toledo, Ohio, and primarily on two men. On the one hand,
there’s fireman Tony Comes, mid-thirties, married with two kids. Some
twenty years earlier, he’d been molested by his then-priest; callow,
impressionable, in need of love, Comes found himself in a situation he
describes as “too screwed up to question,” with the result that he was
“so confounded that (he did) nothing.” On the other hand, there’s
Dennis Gray, the priest in question; a thoroughly repellent individual,
Gray is seen in a 2003 legal deposition, evading questions on the
advice of his lawyer. But Comes is far from silent. Having spent two
decades racked with guilt and shame and thinking he was the only
victim, Comes is galvanized into action when the abuse scandal becomes
national news. He shows remarkable courage and honesty, keeping nothing
from his wife and young kids, joining a support group, even visiting
the cottage where Gray committed his unspeakable acts; determined to
make not only the pedophile priests but those who ignored, lied about,
and covered up the abuse acknowledge and take responsibility for what
happened, he also files a lawsuit. All of this is done at considerable
personal cost. What happened to Comes and the other victims we see here
went even deeper than the nightmares and family problems they
experienced; it shook their very souls, calling into question their
lifelong faith in the essential benevolence of an institution that has
betrayed them. Grim but compelling, Twist of Faith makes for very
sobering viewing.
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