Director and co-writer Xavier Giannoli plucks a war-ravaged journalist (he’s just lost his photographer friend in an explosion, and suffered ear damage to boot) off the battlefield and sends him into terra very much incognita: the Vatican’s canonical investigation into the veracity of a French teenager’s claim to have seen and heard the Virgin Mary. They’ve already got a psychologist, a theologian, and an exorcist on the case, but the Church proves pleasingly mundane in its interest in what can be ascertained through good old-fashioned interviews and fact-checking. It helps that Giannoli’s got Vincent Lindon in the lead as a man who has seen much and believes little, but has somehow remained humane in spite of things — and the director works much like his protagonist, which is to say, methodically and with careful attention to detail and personal connections. (The portrayal of believers — the pining pilgrims, the cautious experts, the fervent hangers-on, and the lamblike visionary herself — is an achievement: cool but not contemptuous, sympathizing without seeking to make them sympathetic.) The result is something rare: a genuinely engaging cinematic treatment of faith, one that offers revelations even as it casts a gimlet eye on Revelation. (2018) — Matthew Lickona