PRESENTS

Well made and wonderfully atmospheric, it's clear to see from the very beginning that Apostle is going to be, at the very least, an entertaining experience. The direction is thoughtful and deliberate, the score is fresh and effectively skin crawling, and the performances are wonderfully committed. Given the film's bare bones narrative approach, it may seem easy to dismiss as a case of style over substance, but it's actually at its most engaging where the deeper elements of its story and characters are left for the audience to actively interpret. This works because where another film might define the conditions surrounding these elements more vaguely, Apostle effectively contextualizes them, allowing the audience to fill in the gaps rather than float through a nebulous and unsatisfying experience. Truth be told, filling them in might not push your deductive reasoning skills to the limit, but it's gratifying all the same. Challenging or not, one can't help but appreciate that kind of respect for the audience's attention span, and paired with the director's love and respect for his own craft, you get a film well worth watching.