Anyone expecting “Holy Trinity” to be a reverent film about the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost of Christian doctrine will realize within the first, oh, four seconds, that’s not what’s happening here.
This is not to say writer-director-star Molly Hewitt’s wonderfully weird, trippy, absurdist, Day-Glo-Color-influenced and very adult fairy tale isn’t filled with religious symbolism and imagery.
It’s just that it’s more along the lines of a priest who fills his coffee cup with holy water and rhapsodizes about his love for the music of Madonna — in particular songs such as “Oh Father,” “Papa Don’t Breach” and of course, “Like a Prayer.”
Ba-dum-bum.
“Holy Trinity” takes place in an alternate-universe version of Chicago in which every store and every generically labeled commercial product is produced under the all-encompassing umbrella of the Glamhag Corp. (The social commentary in this film, while spot-on, isn’t the least bit interested in subtlety.)
Hewitt delivers a natural and funny performance as Trinity, a dominatrix who huffs from a can of “room clearing aerosol spray” and starts hearing the voices of the deceased relatives and loved ones of her friends and even strangers she encounters along her day.
She hears an adult male voice sternly saying “I’m the smartest man you know,” over and over, and eventually realizes it’s a voice from the past of her partner, Baby (played by the talented Theo Germaine, a central Illinois native and Chicago stage actor, who also stars in the new Netflix series “The Politician.”)
In between some explicit sexual adventures, Trinity embarks on a dream-like journey to come to terms with her past and try to figure out the meaning of this strange gift she’s been given. Religious imagery abounds, from the angel-wing design on Trinity’s phone to Trinity donning a red nun’s habit to some devilish references.
Trinity combines gritty, indie film-looking exteriors with creatively fashioned interior set pieces, with colors so bright it’s as if we’ve stepped inside an animated film. A bedroom is orange on top of orange on top of orange. A cake is the pinkest cake you’ve ever seen. Even an all-gray setting somehow seems to pop from the screen.
For all its zany and edgy trappings, “Holy Trinity” follows a somewhat conventional story arc, with the relationship between Trinity and Baby going through hills and valleys, and each character eventually growing and learning from this madcap adventure.
An adventure sprinkled with quite a bit of kink.
This trailer contains graphic imagery and adult language:
