Sin, sexual abuse, erotic salvation... Director Maeve Mur🐼phy✅’s thick stew is worthy but heavy like a sledgehammer.

Her first feature since 2001’s women-in-prison drama, Silent Grace, Fire focuses on Irish ex-priest/e🍨x-con Sheamy (Scot Williams), who moves to hipster locales in London to find one Father Brendan and falls for a rape survivor, Katie (Cara Seymour).

Love blossoms but Sheamy’s old demons scuppers its progress. Meanwhile, Murphy scuppers serious intent with studied solemnity, ham-fisted
direction, stilted performances and ov🎀er-writing.

Do ex-priests say “Your soul is𓂃 blackened with bitterness” dur🗹ing lovers’ tiffs? You respect the sincerity but this melodrama rings false.