Apostasy: The Movie

I just finished watching this movie on Amazon Prime this evening. It’s the story about a Jehovah’s Witness family — mother, and two daughters. One of the daughters gets pregnant out of wedlock and is disfellowshiped. The other needs a blood transfusion but chooses not to have it for religious reasons and dies.

It really touched a nerve here. I saw many similarities, although less extreme, with the one-year penalty/waiting period and how it shut my parents out of the wedding experience. How we let religious institutions interefe too far into our lives. The daughter who is disfellowshipped meets with the local leadership, which looks surprisingly like a Bishopric. The requirement that family drop all but business necessary contact with the disfellowshipped person seemed heartless in the face of a single, pregnant mother living on her own and needing support.

I also saw how humanity seemed to slip away in the face of organizational imperatives imposed on the mother. How conflicted she seemed toward the end, and then, almost fanatical. The movie ends on a startling note, although not violent.

The movie got high reviews — from an artistic perspective, it has sparse dialogue and music, but it gives you powerful messages through the implied subtext. We very well written script.

It is a movie that will have you thinking deeply about our own religion.

https://www.amazon.com/Apostasy-Siobhan-Finneran/dp/B07CSGJNSR