Brand New Testament review: a divine, playful comedy

So it turns out that God (Benoît Poelvoorde) is not dead, he’s just living in an apartment in Brussels. He’s also a jerk: not just a regular jerk, but a god-sized tool-bag whose rudeness and constant bullying make life hell for his 10-year-old daughter Ea (Pili Groyne). Her mother, a shell of a woman who still pines for Ea’s lost older brother JC (who long ago retired to become a statue) shuffles numbly around the family abode.

God previously created humankind and the outside world to make them miserable – which it does through a personal computer which Ea is forbidden to touch. When she does make her way into the surreal room (that rightly saw production designer Sylvie Olivé scoop a European Film Award), Ea’s father hits her with a belt. She retaliates by stealing his office keys, releasing death dates to humankind and by seeking out her own apostles: all the better to write the brand new testament of the title.

Blasphemy-hunters may wince at the synopsis, but it's hard to stay mad at Jaco Van Dormael's playful comedy, as it colours and scribbles – both literally and narratively – outside the lines. Imagine happening on naughty chocolate-smeared toddlers only to discover they have recreated Hieronymus Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights in Smarties.

Ea's apostles are unfailingly comical and frequently forlorn. Rather memorably, the fifth apostle is a loveless married Catherine Deneuve, who, through Ea's encouragement – and with a nod to Max, Mon Amour and every other French movie – leaves her husband for a gorilla.

Young star Groyne, who appeared in the Dardennes brothers' film Two Days, One Night, proves more than capable of outshining her more experienced co-stars. But film fans will surely be primed for the great Yolande Moreau to step up to the plate. When she does, there will be doilies.

It ought to be too daft and random for its own good, but Brand New Testament is a book we can believe in. Hallelujah.