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While he’s had quite a bit of success making films, John Michael McDonagh considers himself a failed novelist. In fact, he credits Calvary’s (2014) episodic structure to his love for literature. McDonagh also claims his fascination with novels influences the first few moments of his second feature film. Like many famous books—The Sun Also Rises (1926), To Kill a Mockingbird (1960) and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884)—Calvary begins with an epigraph.

The movie opens in darkness. A quote by St. Augustine appears on the screen. “Do not despair,” the epigraph reads, “one of the thieves was saved.” The first line certainly sounds comforting, but the second part is much more ominous. “Do not presume,” it continues, “one of the thieves was damned.”

The quote is referring to an excerpt from Luke 23. When Jesus was crucified by the Romans (on Calvary), He was executed alongside two thieves. One of the criminals mocked Christ while the other asked the Son of God for last minute forgiveness. Before passing away, Jesus forgave the second thief, allowing the man to enter into paradise.

More cynically, the epigraph is also a reference to Waiting for Godot (1953), a Samuel Beckett play where two men sit on the side of a road, waiting for the mysterious Godot to arrive. (Spoiler alert: He never does. Care to guess who Godot might symbolize?) Beckett was quite fond of Augsutine’s quote and actually had one of his character paraphrase the line. In Act I, a man named Vladimir muses, “Our Savior. Two thieves. One is supposed to have been saved and the other…damned.”

While Augustine meant to caution the faithful, Beckett intended to cast doubt on the afterlife. As Daniel Walber points out on Film School Rejects, the dismal epigraph “evokes the two thieves as an example of the unpredictability of paradise,” at least as far as Beckett is concerned. And while that’s all well and good, why did John Michael McDonagh open his dark comedy with this particular quote?

Well, just like the epigraph, Calvary is a film about duality and uncertainty, symbolized by two criminals—one who received eternal life, one who received eternal damnation. Immediately after the ambiguous quote, we’re introduced to a good priest, an innocent man who truly cares for his congregation. Of course, Father James Lavelle is quite the rarity. When we first meet the man, he’s listening to an unseen parishioner detail how he was raped by an evil clergyman. Right off the bat, we’re confronted with polar opposites, diametrically opposed priests who both represent the same institution.

As the film unfolds, we’re confronted with a series of contradictory characters and ideas. There’s the faith of Father James vs. the “unbelief” of his parishioners, his conviction vs. Dr. Harte’s cynicism. There’s the enigmatic assassin hell-bent on revenge, and the priest who thinks “forgiveness has been highly underrated.” We watch as Father James struggles with anger and love, doubt and belief, hope and despair. He wrestles with his own salvation, and whether or not he’ll keep his date with destiny or abandon his post. And when his daughter defends her suicide attempt, claiming she belongs to herself and “not to anybody else,” the man thoughtfully replies, “True. False.”

It’s important to remember Christianity itself is based on concepts like Christ is both man and God, humans can find either judgment or grace, and souls end up in either Heaven or Hell. It’s a religion that revolves around the nature of duality, much like this film. Even the Catholic sacrament of penance presents us with the split image of sinner and saint. And as Wade Bearden of Christ and Pop Culture points out, salvation is essentially “the idea that one person can be forgiven through another’s sacrifice,” a paradoxical idea (spoilers) that becomes all too true in the film’s climax.

Finally, in the very last shot, we watch as two victims sit apart from each other, separated by glass. The film fades to black before we hear either one speak, and we’re not quite sure if they found salvation or damnation. But if Christ could forgive the ones who nailed Him to the cross, and Father James could absolve the man who wanted him dead, it’s probably safe to assume that we should not despair.