Breaking the Waves

In a closed Calvinist community on Scotland's north-west coast, where women are not permitted to speak in church, Bess McNeill is a fragile, fervent believer who marries Jan, a Scandinavian oil-rig worker the elders distrust. When an accident at sea leaves him paralysed, Jan urges her to sleep with other men and describe it to him, and Bess, convinced that her sacrifice can save him, does as he asks.