A Prayer for the Dying, a technically accomplished drama from first-time director Dara Van Dusen, tells a somber tale of an unfolding epidemic in 1870s Wisconsin, as reported by The Guardian. The film, adapted from the novel by Stewart O’Nan, boasts striking visual gestures and set pieces, yet feels like a short film stretched too long, lacking emotional substance.
The story is set in a frontier town in Wisconsin, where Jacob, played by Johnny Flynn, serves as both sheriff and pastor, having seen traumatising service in the civil war. He is married to Marta, played by Kristine Kujath Thorp, and they have a young child. The town’s careworn doctor, played by John C Reilly, is a sympathetic and weighty presence in the film.
When the dead body of an itinerant drifter is discovered on the town’s outskirts, it sets off a chain of events that threatens the town’s fragile stability. The doctor is horrified to realise that the man died of diphtheria, and a woman from a neighbouring religious community has the same symptoms, portending a catastrophic epidemic.
Epidemic and Dilemma
The men of the town are divided as to how to respond to the crisis, with some advocating for a lockdown-quarantine and others pushing for a secretive policy of non-acknowledgment. However, the disease soon renders this dilemma irrelevant, as Jacob struggles to enforce his strictures and the town teeters on the brink of chaos.
As the epidemic spreads, the film becomes increasingly somber and haunting, with scenes of horror made worse by the presence of a spreading wildfire. This eerie red glow in the atmosphere could be seen as a PTSD projection, a dramatisation of Jacob’s already deeply unhappy mind.
Reilly delivers his role with sympathy and weight, while Flynn, though always watchable, seems to lack the necessary wrenching anguish. The film, which screened at the Berlin film festival, is a highly controlled artefact, but ultimately delivers less than it promises.
