by Paul Costello
Cults used to enjoy a bit more focus in film, particularly throughout the 70s, most likely a reaction to the public’s shock at and curiosity with the seemingly heightened concern in cult activity, seen most notably in the Manson Family murders and the Jonestown massacre. Suddenly cults were all over the place in film, from Rosemary’s Baby to The Omen, from The Wicker Man to Apocalypse Now. Activity and interest seemed to subside from mainstream media consciousness, only briefly coming back again when the Branch Davidians at Waco were spread across the news in the aftermath of an FBI siege in 1993. However, nearly two decades on, the notion of cults has crept back into film. 2007’s Borderland, 2011’s Red State and 2013’s The Sacrament all take audiences into the dark heart of religious indoctrination, with decidedly gruesome results. Even the less grisly stories, like Martha Marcy May Marlene and The Master, have looked into the psychological damage wrought upon the victims of cults and their leaders. With the latest offering into this sub-sub-genre of films about cults, writer-director Riley Stearns has crafted an impressively controlled debut feature in Faults.
Cults used to enjoy a bit more focus in film, particularly throughout the 70s, most likely a reaction to the public’s shock at and curiosity with the seemingly heightened concern in cult activity, seen most notably in the Manson Family murders and the Jonestown massacre. Suddenly cults were all over the place in film, from Rosemary’s Baby to The Omen, from The Wicker Man to Apocalypse Now. Activity and interest seemed to subside from mainstream media consciousness, only briefly coming back again when the Branch Davidians at Waco were spread across the news in the aftermath of an FBI siege in 1993. However, nearly two decades on, the notion of cults has crept back into film. 2007’s Borderland, 2011’s Red State and 2013’s The Sacrament all take audiences into the dark heart of religious indoctrination, with decidedly gruesome results. Even the less grisly stories, like Martha Marcy May Marlene and The Master, have looked into the psychological damage wrought upon the victims of cults and their leaders. With the latest offering into this sub-sub-genre of films about cults, writer-director Riley Stearns has crafted an impressively controlled debut feature in Faults.
There are many great battles of wills to be seen throughout the years of filmic storytelling. Look at the televised political tête-à-tête of Frost/Nixon… the military cross-examination of A Few Good Men… the whole of Sleuth… duels with words as weapons and strong minds determined to find the weakness in the other and claim victory, sheer conviction as the singular reason to win. And there is none more fertile ground for the turmoil of such battles than the subject of religious indoctrination, be that mainstream religion or fringe cult. There are few films that have really attempted to engage with stories of this ilk, with Jane Campion’s Holy Smoke! being the only example that readily springs to mind. However, where that film sought to explore the numerous ideological battlegrounds inherent in the conflict of two people trying to find flaws within each other, Faults is less of an investigation into what people actually believe in as it is a rumination on why a person should have something to believe in at all. In our central pairing of cultist and deprogrammer, it is clear that where one perhaps has a flawed belief system built on shallow answers, the alternative as someone without any belief system at all (other than fulfilling their own immediate needs) is perhaps just as bad. Stearns’ script may start to wander away from making any resolute conclusions on this idea as it veers more towards manipulation of audience expectation, but it never becomes flimsy enough to erase the notion. And a big help in this is having two intriguing characters to follow.
In Ansel Roth, Leland Orser finds not only a lead role that so rarely crosses the perpetual character actor’s path, but a role that rarely finds the focus as a lead at all. Roth starts his time with us as a jerk. Not just a jerk, but an unapologetic, unbearable prick. The kind of guy who makes his meagre way through the world on minor cons and what little grace the faded spectre of his former fame can afford him. Once renowned as an expert on cults and behavioural deprogramming, a man who made his name and career on seeing the ways in which people can be exploited, he’s now a shell of his former self, an apathetic burnout trying to stay afloat in a world that barely remembers him. And Orser does some wonderful work in the guise of Roth. Throughout his career, Orser has turned out a line of characters defined by strain and anguish, and he channels all this through his disgraced deprogrammer and giving it the extra edge of an earned misanthropy and cynicism.
In Ansel Roth, Leland Orser finds not only a lead role that so rarely crosses the perpetual character actor’s path, but a role that rarely finds the focus as a lead at all. Roth starts his time with us as a jerk. Not just a jerk, but an unapologetic, unbearable prick. The kind of guy who makes his meagre way through the world on minor cons and what little grace the faded spectre of his former fame can afford him. Once renowned as an expert on cults and behavioural deprogramming, a man who made his name and career on seeing the ways in which people can be exploited, he’s now a shell of his former self, an apathetic burnout trying to stay afloat in a world that barely remembers him. And Orser does some wonderful work in the guise of Roth. Throughout his career, Orser has turned out a line of characters defined by strain and anguish, and he channels all this through his disgraced deprogrammer and giving it the extra edge of an earned misanthropy and cynicism.
Mary Elizabeth Winstead actually does even better as Claire, the cultist and subject of Roth’s new charge. Though never really getting the showier moments of dramatic reaction, Claire is perhaps the more difficult role thanks to the multiple layers that Winstead has to track in quick succession, if not simultaneously. A frightened girl, a headstrong believer, a demeaned daughter, victim, opponent, Winstead is able to move throughout this phases with remarkable fluidity. It’s a testament to her skill that she remains so outwardly vulnerable, and yet maintains an element of distance that would seem to undercut all this. There is a mask to Claire, yet it remains unclear only until its final moments just what it hides.
Faults is a solidly engaging film, though its ending may have its detractors, with some potentially finding it a little unsatisfying (though not without weight, the lack of which would be a far greater crime). The two excellent lead performances from Orser and Winstead keep the film alive, and Stearns’ direction ably handles the steady progression from dark comedy to something that’s more of the former and less of the latter. If this is the starting standard of the filmmaker’s work, it shall be interesting to see what Stearn’s shall bring us for his second film.
Faults is a solidly engaging film, though its ending may have its detractors, with some potentially finding it a little unsatisfying (though not without weight, the lack of which would be a far greater crime). The two excellent lead performances from Orser and Winstead keep the film alive, and Stearns’ direction ably handles the steady progression from dark comedy to something that’s more of the former and less of the latter. If this is the starting standard of the filmmaker’s work, it shall be interesting to see what Stearn’s shall bring us for his second film.
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