Five minutes into Pablo Larrain’s new film and I’m worried the acclaimed director has decided to remake Seabiscuit as five friends train up a greyhound.

Five minutes later, another plot twist, and the fear is that he is filming the South American Father Ted at a home for disgraced and defrocked priests.

Five minutes later and normal order is resumed with the arrival of an outsider and the sudden gunshot which jolts the film into familiar Larrain territory; facing up to Chile’s dark past with an unflinching eye.

The shamed priests, kept out of harm’s way in an isolated coastal town but also out of the hands of justice or the light of the media, are proud and unrepentant. Their crimes are never fully established and they show glimpses of kindness, mercy and self-sacrifice.

The seemingly goodly characters have their saintliness chipped away: a nurse who holds the house together but whose past is blemished and a spiritual doctor sent to close the home who seemingly wrestles his own urges.

This is no simple battle between good and evil. There’s certainly no Seabiscuit happy ending for the dogs but Larrain ends the film with a sense of hope even when so much dirty water has gone under the bridge.

Four stars