Warsaw priest Adam (Andrzej Chyra, KATYN) runs a center for troubled youths in the countryside with failed seminarian Michal (Lukasz Simlat, WARSAW). Tensions run high with a schism between the delinquents and the local "rednecks" who work together in the quarry, and shopgirl Ewa's (Maja Ostaszewska, THE PIANIST erotic overtures; but Adam - who came to religion as an adult - fights a loneliness further exacerbated by his growing desire for local boy - grown but still young and suspected of acts of pyromania - Lucasz (Mateusz Kosciukiewicz, MOTHER TERESA OF CATS) whose feelings may be mutual. Adam keeps secret the relationship he discovers between his charges "Baboon" (Daniel Swiderski) and new troublemaker Adrian (Tomasz Schuchardt, WALESA: MAN OF HOPE), overlooking other issues until tragedy occurs; and he soon finds his own conduct under scrutiny (particularly in light of another suicide that preceded his transfer from the city to the country parish).

Writer/director Malgorzata Szumowska (ELLES) tackles a touchy topic here with sensitivity and ambiguity, weaving together a web of attitudes, rumors, and unaddressed concerns that precipitate the climax more so than any specific event. Chyra gives a sensitive and well-rounded lead performance that is occasionally undercut by some unsubtle turns of director Szumowska who seems simultaneously determined not to make the character a martyr while also seeming unable to resist casting him in certain Christ-like visual tableau including a shot of Adam lying in bed with the same foreshortening effect as Andrea Mantegna's "The Lamentation of Christ"). The "enigmatic" final shot is almost inexplicable in light of the scene that preceded it (as well as what the protagonist has gone through in his position), and seems provocative for the its own sake rather than inviting interpretation or sparking debate.