For many years I would chat genially with our local Jehovah, Stephen, who came door-to-door every few months or so, always hopeful that one day I would let Jesus into my life. (Will he babysit, I would always ask. Will he pair socks? Will he interrupt me during dinner LIKE YOU?) Then I actually read one of the Watchtower magazines he always left behind and discovered that if your husband is violent and beating you then you need to ask yourself: am I being a sufficiently loving wife? Next time Stephen appeared he was doing his rounds with a teenage girl so I looked her in the eye and said: ‘If a man beats a woman, it isn’t and can never be her fault.’ And that was the last I saw of Stephen. (Not strictly true, in fact, as he’s often hanging around the bus stop. But he never knocked again.)
So this is what I knew about Jehovah’s Witnesses, and it was all I thought I ever wanted to know about Jehovah’s Witnesses, thanks very much. You live your life, I’ll live mine. But Apostasy, a British drama about an all-female Jehovah family living up north, is brilliantly done, extraordinarily fascinating and emotionally powerful too. It was made in three weeks for £500,000 — a 300th of the latest Mission Impossible budget although, to be fair, no one here has to skydive through a lightning storm — but it says so much with so little, and says it sensitively and quietly.
Apostasy is a debut feature from Daniel Kokotajlo, who was raised as a Jehovah in Oldham, and his first-hand knowledge means we instantly know this is rooted in something deeply and personally felt. It is set somewhere in Manchester and stars the always-wonderful Siobhan Finneran as Ivanna, mother of two daughters: the older, Luisa (Sacha Parkinson), is at college while the younger, Alex (Molly Wright), is just about to finish with school.
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