Hannah and her sisters

Danny Boyle gets religion in Mr. Wroe's Virgins

by Peter Keough

MR. WROE'S VIRGINS, Directed by Danny Boyle. Written by Jane Rogers, from her novel. With Jonathan Pryce, Minnie Driver, Kerry Fox, Kathy Burke, and Lia Williams. A BBC Films release. At the Museum of Fine Arts December 18, 19, 26, 27, and 30.

Before he was exulting in the outrages and woes of modern-day heroin users in Trainspotting, director Danny Boyle delved into the mysteries of a different kind of heroine and a different kind of opiate -- religion. A BBC mini-series made in 1993, Mr. Wroe's Virgins is based on the true story of John Wroe (Jonathan Pryce), charismatic leader of the "Christian Israelite" fundamentalist cult that was active in England in the strife-filled year of 1830. To the consternation of his flock, Wroe issued a call to be provided with seven virgins for "comfort and succor." His congregation complied, and the stories of four of the inducted women provide the text of the mini-series's four episodes. The result is Boyle's most brilliant and accomplished work, a masterfully structured labyrinth of misleading point of view, a canny exploration of the politics of sex and power, a vertiginous glimpse into the void of faith and despair.

The first virgin is no virgin at all. Leah (a vivid, pre-Matt Damon Minnie Driver) is taken by Wroe when he defies a crowd of taunters at a riverside baptism. The mob throws stones; Wroe, waist deep in the river, arms upraised in cruciform style, is untouched. Many are converted. Leah giggles as Wroe submerges her in the water uttering the words of the sacrament, then runs off to smooch with the redcoat who will father her child. Two years later, she will embrace Wroe's call for virgins as a way to escape from her constricting father's household and perhaps achieve freedom and fortune with this emerging patriarch.

If Leah is the carnal manipulator of the crew, then the genuine faith is provided by Joanna (Lia Williams), who takes charge of the household. Her spirit, and her flesh, do not go unnoticed by Wroe, and when she tells him of a dream she has involving hellfire and a beatific child, Wroe interprets the dream with carnal and apocalyptic intent, posing Joanna as an instrument in the second coming of Christ.

Scientific rationalism, too, has a voice here. Hannah (Kerry Fox) is without faith; she's been committed to Wroe by her ardent-believer father. In the searing prologue to her story, Hannah's father shows his child the debauchery of his fellow villagers, pointing out the looming comet that portends the end of days. Hannah is unconvinced; instead she puts her faith in social progress. Drawn to the growing local labor movement, she sees Wroe's eloquence, resources, and printing press as tools for establishing a secular New Jerusalem.

Wroe's motives regarding his virginal retinue are, no surprise, not entirely spiritual. Whom he debauches and how and why, however, remains an enigma. Mr. Wroe's Virgins is a kind of mystery story, a puzzle of not quite interconnecting versions of the truth. The episodes overlap; the same events are skewed from the perspectives of the woman whose tale it is. Played superbly by Pryce, Wroe is alternately self-righteous and wounded, tyrannical and compassionate, corrupted and genuinely holy.

Nowhere are his ambiguities more evident than in the final episode, "Martha's Story." Portrayed in a harrowing, triumphant performance by Kathy Burke, Martha is a feral, irreparably damaged troglodyte. In broken flashbacks her past is revealed: the tragic death of her brother, her grotesque abuse at the hands of her father. Slowly, tutored by Joanna, taunted by Leah, she learns to feel and speak. Wroe, too, takes an interest, and his relationship with her is both revolting and redeeming.

Ultimately, it is the mute and halting Martha who rises to Wroe's defense when he is drawn before the elders to account for his indiscretions and answer to their charges. Malice, ambition, and disillusionment addle everyone else; only the supremely violated Martha possesses clarity, and her testimony soars with epiphanic rapture in its description of the differences between darkness and light, death and life. Unfolding with the limpid majesty of a psalm, interweaving with fugal complexity and grace, Mr. Wroe's Virgins is a luminous entry into the canon of religious cinema.