Movie reviews: Silence, A Monster Calls, Why Him?

(15A) opens in 1640, with two Jesuit priests, Fr Sebastião (Andrew Garfield) and Fr Francisco (Adam Driver), dispatched to Japan to ascertain the whereabouts of Christian missionary Fr Ferreira (Liam Neeson). Their mission, however, isn’t simply one of discovery: in a period of brutal Christian persecution in Japan, Fr Ferreira is accused of becoming an apostate and denying the one true religion. Adapted from Shûsaku Endô’s novel by Martin Scorsese and Jay Cocks, with Scorsese directing, Silence is both a gripping tale and a complex, involving meditation on faith.