Unchosen reels you in with its intriguing synopsis and makes you regret the next six hours of your life. This Netflix series — attempting to tell a story about a religious cult thrown into disarray by forces both within and outside of it — starts tepid, grows tiresome and ends tedious.
Which is a major missed opportunity for creator Julie Gearey, who wastes a premise that had the potential to score with both familial drama and psychological intrigue, but falls short on both counts. And many more.
Based on modern-day religious cults, especially those that dot the map of the United Kingdom, Unchosen doesn’t waste time in getting to the point. With a backdrop of pastoral scenes, the first words that appear on screen are: “Over two thousand cults exist in the United Kingdom. Some are closed communities, but others, like this fictional one, live in plain sight.”
“This” refers to ‘Fellowship of the Divine’, a Christian splinter sect whose members look like they have walked out of Victorian-era England. Tempered with The Handmaid’s Tale look and vibe, Unchosen has the men assuming authoritarianism — “this is a sanctuary safe from the temptations of the world outside and from the evil that lies within” — while the women function as silent victims of sexual perversion and, ultimately, baby-producing machines.
Rosie (Molly Windsor) is one such member who longs to break away with her daughter, Grace. Molly’s husband Adam (Asa Butterfield) is a staunch member of the cult, one that believes that modern-day technology is “a pipeline of pornography and sewage to our souls”.
When Grace almost drowns at a nearby creek, a stranger comes to not only the young girl’s rescue, but also seems to be a way for Molly to escape her dreadful life. But Sam (Fra Fee) — aka one of the “unchosen” — is not quite the man she thinks him to be.
Unchosen could have been a riveting addition to the “cult-escape” sub-genre, but the series, to put it politely, is a slog. There are definitely some interesting ideas tucked in there — personal freedom, religious resistance — but the show, that succumbs to daft, over-the-top melodrama, doesn’t have enough meat or meaning to see them through.
