In a small town on a damp edge of coast in Chile live four suspended priests; they are isolated, forbidden from talking to strangers, and their walks along the empty beaches are monitored from afar. Home is a large, ugly stone house, kept impeccably clean by a starchy matron, Mother Mónica. Money is tight and the comforts are frugal. A chain of humdrum rituals hauls them up in the morning and pulls them down again at night. Their one shared pleasure is a greyhound, Rayo, who occasionally romps home in first place on a stretch of muddy farmland. The four priests cheer these rare victories via binoculars from an adjacent hill. If that isn’t a large enough clue to the stigma that surrounds them, there’s the weather. The iron-grey cloud cover in Pablo Larraín’s film never lifts even when the sun shines.