‘Faith’ Review: Enigmatic, Increasingly Unmoored Grief Drama Isn’t Equal to Erin Doherty’s Gut-Wrenching Performance

Twenty years on from his debut feature “London to Brighton,” Paul Andrew Williams remains a tough talent to pigeonhole on the British indie film scene. His filmography veers from kitchen-sink realism to wild genre storytelling, sometimes with a supernatural bent; from the visceral, stomach-churning severity of “Bull” to the untrammelled sentimentality of “Song for Marion.” In his latest film, “Faith,” pretty much all those impulses come to roost at one point or another, which arguably makes this emotional assault course about a young working-class mother’s bereavement the director’s most quintessential work.

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It is not, however, his best, despite a performance of bare, shattering desolation by Erin Doherty, fresh from her Emmy win last year for “Adolescence,” and here fully proving her mettle as a big-screen lead. But if her conviction never wavers, the story around her — centering on a healing relationship with a kindly but cryptic stranger, played by James McAvoy — is considerably less stable, toward a (yes) faith-based final act likely to leave audiences sharply divided. Williams’ last feature “Dragonfly” was likewise a tremendous performance showcase (for Andrea Riseborough and Brenda Blethyn) that went violently off the rails toward the close; given the benefits of a Toronto festival launch and McAvoy’s marquee value, “Faith” should enjoy a higher profile.

Though it ends in a place that the British master of social realism wouldn’t dream of, “Faith” begins very much in Loachian mode, introducing thirtysomething single mother Gina (Doherty) at the confectionery factory where she works in an anonymous Yorkshire town. Simona Şuşnea’s camera appears mesmerized by the pastel dollops of marshmallow traveling along the production line as they’re sliced and shaped in various dainty ways — their bright softness far removed from the lives we’re about to explore.

That said, Gina’s life is hard but not unhappy, thanks in large part to her nine-year-old son Jamie (the very appealing Smylie Bradwell, briefly seen in last year’s “Hamnet”), an ebullient and sweet-natured kid who returns her absolute devotion. Outside of work, her days largely revolve around Jamie and her sister/bestie Poppy (Liv Hill), a fellow mom and a frequent visitor to her modest home on a low-income housing estate; dating is not on the agenda, but occasionally she lets loose with an evening at the local pub. On one such occasion, she meets friendly Glaswegian Michael (McAvoy), there despite being a teetotaller and having no accompanying friends. That’s the first sign of something odd about him; the second, as he benignly chats Gina up, is that he finds out a lot about her whilst revealing nothing of himself.

The third, Gina is not party to. After he walks her home, gallantly refusing her tipsy offer to come inside, he makes a brief, pointed remark to the departing babysitter that implies one of two things: Either he has some manner of second sight, or he’s simply a psychopath. Either way, we’re on the alert as Gina begins chastely seeing Michael; their next rendezvous may be a food bank where he volunteers, but surely he’s too good to be entirely true. McAvoy, lightly grizzled, plays him with an unsettling, constantly observant demeanor, and there’s a degree of otherworldly remove even to his most kindly gestures. And there are plenty of those to come when Jamie, in a parent’s-worst-nightmare mishap, dies the night before his tenth birthday.

Doherty’s primal, howling articulation of a mother’s anguish in this circumstance is so raw-nerved as to be hard to watch. Her voice wrecked, her body sapped and slack, her eyes practically drained of color and light, she trudges through former routines with the torpor of the undead; the actress shows how small gestures of everyday social exchange have to be relearned, every polite word and tight smile an almighty effort. It’s such a harrowing grief portrait, it’s not entirely surprising that “Faith” seems a bit stymied in its wake, though the hard-left swerve that Williams’ script takes into twisty theological territory — a divine genre intervention, so to speak — doesn’t feel like the solution.

“Faith’s” earnest appropriation of blunt Christian symbolism makes it something of a radical proposition in the U.K., generally a pretty secular cultural landscape. The film may even be a more polarizing conversation piece on home turf than Stateside, though given the otherwise wholly arthouse prospects for a solemn slab of British miserablism, it may struggle to reach the American audience that would be most unquestioningly moved by it. Regardless, Williams’ latest continues to prove him one of the most brazen risk-takers in his corner of the industry. “Faith” demands of its audience a massive leap of, well, you know, but it will eventually find its followers.