Preacher Carlton Pearson (Chiwetel Ejiofor) wrestles with the pull of organized religion and divine belief in Netflix’s superb new film “Come Sunday.” Equal parts religious meditation and institutional indictment, Joshua Marston continues his streak of exceptional films, beginning with 2004’s “Maria Full of Grace” and, more recently, “Complete Unknown.” Buoyed by exceptional performances by Ejiofor, Jason Segel, and notably, Lakeith Stanfield, “Come Sunday” is a film that should not be missed.
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Carlton Pearson is a beloved pastor, having prayed with presidents, and is on the verge of breaking into a mainstream “megachurch” audience, with a devout following as his sermons are even televised, the camera hovering over as he preaches. A pupil of Oral Roberts (played by a reserved Martin Sheen), Pearson is a family man struggling between the pull of fame and his own beliefs. After watching a program focusing on the genocide of Rwanda, whose citizens are not Christian, hence going to Hell according to his doctrine, he believes he’s spoken to by God and renounces Hell altogether. He begins to preach “universal reconciliation,” that all souls will be forgiven by God, drawing the ire of Roberts and eventually being labeled a heretic by the church.
Yet even that above synopsis positions the film as something of a polemical diatribe against Christianity, when really Marston and screenwriter Marcus Hinchey (“All Good Things”) focus in on what happens when one’s faith and social belonging collude, creating a nuanced character study of Pearson. “Come Sunday” also treats religion seriously, a rare feat in today’s films, as Pearson is an unshakeable man of faith who truly does not want to let his friends, family. and congregation down but cannot recant what he believes.
Serious religious-themed filmmaking has, of recent, been commercially but not necessarily critically marginalized (Martin Scorsese’s “Silence” comes to mind). However, there has been a resurgence of films for Christian audience (including the “God’s Not Dead” series and “The Shack”) have seemingly embraced a certain unquestioned religious ideology, with great financial success. “Come Sunday” is frankly too critical of hierarchical religious affiliations to fit neatly into this genre, though it remains a rare commercial film to wholeheartedly portray a devout man and the struggle between social and religious worship.
Besides Ejiofor, who comes alive when giving his sermons, Jason Segel as his number two in the church gives an atypically restrained performance, torn between the needs of the church and his pastor, he exemplifies the struggle of Pearson’s worshippers. But the true standout, as he often is, is Lakeith Stanfield as the troubled piano player Reggie, who has denied his homosexuality because of Pearson’s teachings and now cannot understand what to make of his life. At this point, after such eclectic turns as “Crown Heights,” “Snowden,” “Death Note,” and, of course, “Atlanta,” what can’t Stanfield do? In a confrontation with Pearson late in the film, Stanfield steals the film with his humanistic embodiment of a conflicted soul.
Marston’s restrained filmmaking avoids the bombast that this type of story, adapted from a “This American Life” segment, could be and the film is all the better for this decision. By allowing Ejiofor the time and narrative space, even allowing many of the sermons to play out in full, to express Pearson’s confliction, Marston has created one of the more restrained explorations of faith in quite some time.