Audiences cannot fail to register the enormity of Martin Scorsese’s achievement in Silence. At 160 minutes, it hangs heavy over the film: adapted from the 1966 novel by Japanese writer Shusaku Endo, Silence has been close on three decades in the director’s preparation. It raises questions that are usually approached with Capital Letters. There are moments that are visually enthralling, landscapes of nature that dwarf the sufferings – visceral, in the literal sense, since they involve damage to the human body – inflicted on many of its characters. We’ll leave the “and yets” to later…

The opening scene is paradigmatic: a wide landscape of torture, crucifixes placed by steaming pools which provide boiling water to agonise both the Christian believers of Japan and the western missionaries who came to convert them. It is 1633, and the Japanese authorities, perceiving Christianity as a threatening adjunct of colonialism, force their captives to deny their religion – to commit apostasy, the issue and the act which sears the very gut of Scorsese’s film.

You may be reminded of Christoph Waltz, or alternatively of Ken Dodd’s false teeth gags

Its usual form involved trampling on the fumi-e, an image of Christ or Mary; when proof of more extreme rejection was demanded, it involved spitting on the cross. Such were the dilemmas confronting Japan's hidden Christians, the Kakure Kirishitan, who attempted to worship in secret. But this opening scene forces a more extreme choice on the missionaries – to embrace their extreme suffering, in the manner of Christ, or to make an exemplary repudiation of belief. Under such circumstances, that denial can never be treated – let alone interpreted – as following God’s will. Or can it?

The Jesuit priest at the centre of Silence is Father Ferreira (Liam Neeson, pictured below), although we encounter him only in its last scenes. When reports of Ferreira denying his faith eventually reach his order back in Lisbon, two of his incredulous disciples – Fathers Rodrigues (Andrew Garfield) and Francisco Garrupe (Adam Driver) – volunteer to travel to Japan to prove his innocence. They seem far from heroic figures, although they undertake such a journey at obvious risk to their own lives.Their quest may have earned comparison to Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, and along with that Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, but it’s a pale equation. Neeson’s Ferreira has wrought not physical horror, rather – if anything – a cerebral one (while the charge that Silence aims for the brain, rather than the heart, is a real one). The two priests’ journey to the shores of Japan is easy enough; in Macau they acquire a guide, the eccentric Kichijiro (Yosuke Kubozuka), whose lapses go beyond religion, and for whom denial and seeking forgiveness follow a practically cyclical basis, to occasionally comic effect.

But the priests’ first encounters with the hidden believers of Japan (Taiwan provided most locations for the film) are deadly serious, not least because of the mortal threat of discovery. The celebration of sacrament (pictured below) in secret has the urgency of the early Roman catacomb believers, and is received with a joy that seems greater than in more secure environments (though whether that is actually the case is another question, raised later). Their ministry continues, but the two priests can only escape capture for so long, at which point Scorsese narrows the perspective of his film to concentrate on Garfield’s character.There’s a change of register, too. Rodrigues faces expert opponents, in the figure of the local inquisitor Inoue (Issey Ogata) particularly, as well as the latter's interpreter (Tadanobu Asano). It's a sometimes unsettling balance: Ogata is something of a Japanese thespian legend – he played Emperor Hirohito in Alexander Sokurov's The Sun, too– who’s as much famed as a comedian, and he manages occasionally disarming comic effects here. (You may be reminded either of Christoph Waltz, or alternatively of Ken Dodd’s false teeth gags.)

Inoue’s tactics are deadly, however. He forces his captive to witness cruelty wrought on others – burning and blood-draining are mild when set against crucifixion-drowning – all the time reminding Rodrigues that he only has to perform a single gesture to stop such torture. Intellectually too, he articulates the view later espoused by Ferreira himself when the two priests eventually meet, that the Japanese believers had never followed true Christianity, rather a mixed-up belief system that overlapped with their pantheism; and that Japan is a "swamp" where Christianity “does not take root”. To all of Garfield’s prayers, his God remains silent.

That final meeting with Ferreira is anticlimactic – worse, it lacks the intensity of communication that might provide dramatic conviction. The older westerner now lives with a Japanese wife, as in due course will Rodrigues (echoes of Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ). What we witness of their closing years is treated with a rapidity that at this stage comes as considerable relief. These are actors expiring with a whimper, and not making us believe in the significance of that last gasp, although how you interpret the film’s final scene will certainly affect your final judgment of it (as, inescapably, will your own religious convictions, or lack thereof).

Scorsese regulars Dante Ferretti and Rodrigo Prieto make stand-out contributions in production design and cinematography respectively, as was to be expected. Three years after the drastically different The Wolf of Wall Street – that contrast is so huge – it’s hard to say just what we might have expected from Silence. We can’t judge the director for the range of his intentions, however, but rather on the integrality of his execution. On that basis Scorsese’s new film falls short: being ponderous does not equate with achieving gravity.

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MARTIN SCORSESE ON THEARTSDESK

Taxi Driver (1976). Talking to me? Scorsese's classic starring Robert De Niro (pictured) is restored and re-released on its 35th anniversary

Shutter Island (2010). Not a blinder: Leonardo DiCaprio in Martin Scorsese's feverish paranoid thriller

Hugo (2011). Scorsese does a Spielberg in sumptuous look at the origins of cinema

George Harrison - Living in the Material World (2011). Martin Scorsese's epic documentary of the Quiet One

The Wolf of Wall Street (2014). Con brio: Scorsese and DiCaprio tell of the rise and fall of a broker

Arena: The 50 Year Argument (2014). A warmly engaging film about the 'New York Review of Books' might have been more than a birthday love-in

Vinyl (2016). Scorsese and Jagger's series is prone to warping, skipping and scratches

Silence (2016). Scorsese's latest is a mammoth, more ponderous than profound

Overleaf: watch the trailer for Silence

Anyone expecting a knockout punch from Matthew Bourne’s latest creation is in for a let-down. His hotly anticipated take on Powell and Pressburger’s 1948 film, unlike his Swan Lake, is not going to send anyone out into the night weeping into their hankie. Nor is it likely to turn unbelievers into ballet fans, and yet it is probably his best piece of work to date.

John Donnelly’s play The Pass scored a slate of five-star reviews when it ran at the Royal Court early last year – theartsdesk called it “scorching” – and plaudits for Russell Tovey’s central performance were practically stellar (“a star performance from onetime History Boys student that this actor's career to this point has in no way suggested,” we raved). For those who missed that sell-out, small-stage, seven-week run, Ben A Williams’ film adaptation delivers all the impact of that experience, in an independent British production that manages the transfer from stage to screen more than gamely. And Tovey remains quite remarkable.

Williams keeps the play's strict three-act structure intact, never tempted to open the story out with fill-in cinematic context: its action is claustrophobically limited to the the original's three hotel rooms, now visited at five-year intervals. Retaining the limited size of these spaces becomes a new asset as, particularly in the first episode, Tovey practically bounces off the edges of the screen, so vibrant is his performance, while close-ups bring us right into what's going on inside his head.

Their allegiances of friendship will be tested 

That opening brings home the nuance of Donnelly’s title, introducing the work’s twin themes, football and sexuality. Tovey’s Jason, peroxide-blonde in an engagingly naive way, and Arinze Kene’s Ade are both 19, professional footballers playing as substitutes but about to get their potential break in a Champion’s League match. They are sharing a hotel room (it’s Bucharest, but location isn’t important), relaxing, joshing one another around (main picture), almost jumping up and down on the beds like kids: they’re old, close pals, who have been leading the same intense sporting life of youth training for a decade. What lies beyond that world features little here: of their backgrounds we learn only that Jason’s father is a builder, more prosperous (so he’s a bit “different”, posh even, in these circumstances), while Nigerian Ade’s dad is a preacher, a factor that has Jason ribbing his friend, but affectionately – he’s a joker, albeit one who never finally reveals himself.

Their allegiances of friendship will be tested. Talking about tactics for the match the next day, the issue of one kind of pass comes up – whether either of the players will feed the other the ball at the right moment, or stick in there with a solo chance that just might bring fame. Then there’s the other pass: they’re both naked except for their Y-fronts, they're both buff, and the familiarity of physical banter easily shades into something else. We don’t see quite what, or how it ends, only a kind of nervous foreplay that sits uneasily somewhere between japery, provocation, and something more serious.

Just how serious becomes apparent as Jason’s fate unfolds. This premier football world is one in which being gay and becoming a star are anathema: we remember all too well the only first-class player who revealed his homosexuality, or very possibly, was forced to do so by the threat of tabloid exposure – Justin Fashanu, whose subsequent career, life and death surely remain a doleful object lesson to anyone potentially in the same position. The next time we see Jason, he’s made the big time, holding court now in a flashy penthouse suite to Lindsay (Lisa McGrillis, pictured with Tovey, above), a club dancer whom he’s picked up (though we learn he’s married by now, with children). He’s still as jocularly, wordily in control as ever, however much it looks suspiciously like a tabloid sting. But the permutations of deceit here are multi-layered: at least Jason is controlling them, as something he said in the opening scene gains a new, chilling significance.

At least Jason is still on a roll, master of his own universe. By the final time we encounter him, that’s going, the third luxury hotel room now more like an enclosure: there’s an exercise bike, but his routine is driven by booze and painkillers (it's only a matter of time before a knee goes: then it will all be over). He's divorced, and has imperiously summoned Ade. They haven't met since the opening scene: Ade never got his break, but he has come out – and he’s got a boyfriend – and is working as a plumber, a life very different from all the glory and rewards that have come to his erstwhile mate. It’s a very bruising encounter, not only for what their reunion brings, but for how Jason ropes in the hotel bellboy, who's in awe to this sporting hero, to involve him in a perverse, vindictive ritual of humiliation (Nico Mirallegro, pictured below, left, plays that supporting role, youthfully naïve, more The Village than Rillington Place). Jason’s game, still so manipulative and deceitful, would be brilliant – if it wasn’t tragic now. What is a man, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself? Tovey captures all that, and more.

Arinze Kene as Ade is the only one not from the original Royal Court production, but he more than keeps up with play. He’s got cheek bones that give his face a particular quality, and there’s a moment at the peak of that first scene when he catches something remarkable indeed – a single glance of pure, gut-wrenching sadness that comes almost out of nowhere, but somehow colours the film. The Pass is Ben Williams’ feature debut, and he gets the most out of such visual chances, allowing us to dwell on moments in a way that theatre can’t (and a certain theatrical staginess sometimes remains). It’s there in some of Tovey’s expressions, Chris O’Driscoll’s camera lingering on something for a moment in a way that makes it resonate.   

Full and final kudos must go to producer Duncan Kenworthy too, for pushing The Pass so adroitly down its independent British route rather than into the studio system (you never know how easily that can wreck a project until it’s already happened). Tovey’s five-star performance brings the film a deserved fourth one of its own, and it can only be hoped that one of its lasting achievements may be to influence broader public attitudes, even in just the smallest way, to its subject for the better.    

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Overleaf: watch the trailer for The Pass

Baz Luhrmann’s Strictly Ballroom started life as a short stage play in 1984, drawing on its creator’s own experiences in the heady world of amateur ballroom dancing. That the iconic 1992 film exists at all is something of a miracle; production funding was scarce and no distributor was willing to screen it until it was accepted for the 1992 Cannes Festival. Strictly Ballroom is still an intoxicating viewing experience: a visually arresting and upbeat modern fairy tale, smartly cast and superbly performed.

Thank God for Akram Khan, English National Ballet, and Tamara Rojo. Their new Giselle, which finally arrived at Sadler's Wells this week after its Salford premiere in September, is a work of intelligence, power, beauty, and - most gratifying of all in this age of lies, damned lies and politics - stunning integrity. This is a ballet about issues that matter, made by people who know what they're doing.

“Why is everyone from your school a criminal crackhead?” “Why is everyone from yours a Tory minister?” These questions lie at the heart of Zadie Smith’s NW. Keisha (the wonderful Nikki Amuka-Bird), aka Natalie, is married to wealthy Frank (Jake Fairbrother), who’s asking the crackhead question. Leah (Phoebe Fox), who answers back, is her best friend – though that’s no longer a given.

At first, I was a bit confused by the play’s title. After all, David Hare gave his 1998 adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler’s La Ronde the moniker of The Blue Room, which coincidentally is the same title as Mathieu Amalric’s very recent adaptation of a thriller by Georges Simenon. Now Hare has taken another Simenon thriller, La Main, and called it The Red Barn, which immediately suggests the murder of Maria Marten in 1827.

Anthony Harvey’s The Lion in Winter was released in 1968, the screenplay adapted by James Goldman from his long-running play. Loosely based on historical fact, the Lear-like plot charts an ageing King Henry II’s futile attempts to choose a successor after the premature death of his eldest son.

Much was anticipated from Tate Taylor's film version of Paula Hawkins's bestselling novel, but there really are times when the best plan is to stay home with a good book. Despite a high-octane girl-power cast and the lustrous screenwriting reputation of Erin Cressida Wilson, this thing clanks along like the 3am milk train to Exeter sidings.

“For a husband to stray he is merely responding to his biology. But for a woman to behave in a similar way is ridiculous, unimaginable. Just the idea is funny.” This unwitting strapline issues from the boobyish Sir James Martin towards the end of Love & Friendship, Whit Stillman’s delightful riff on Jane Austen which, in the person of Lady Susan Vernon, proves quite the opposite is true.