An example of how you show who a character is in a seemingly minor (as in not directly plot related sense) but important moment is when, after that first day of filming is done for the documentary, Lee Curtis and Trinitie Childs are in the car going home at night and they're both quiet, nothing to say to one another and it seems tense. Lee Curtis puts on the radio and blasts a very uh Explicit rap song and he is rapping along to it. At first one sees Trinitie not saying anything and the thought is this is showing her as we might reasonably expect - she is along for the proverbial ride and she really can't stand this side of Lee Curtis (or rather who he is when the cameras aren't on)... but then she cuts in on the female verse of this track and raps right along with him. *Well*.
She knows what's up, in other words, and whatever is going to happen with this man driving the car, she is right along with him. And that means through *all* the BS.
This is a very funny, awkward, satirically successful and rich movie where the stylistic choice to do both Mockumentary and just regular-shot drama is OK but sometimes spotty; you can tell when because it'll cut to wide-screen and be shot with convential coverage, albeit there are a few especially keen close ups and, at one point, tracking/dolly shots to create some particular character dynamics (like with Lee Curtis and the sound guy at the basketball court, one of my favorite scenes for how this Minister turns on a... varied kind of oily charm for this guy).
One wonders if it could've worked a little better as a totally conventional-shot film or if it needed to go more all in on the Fly on the Wall approach. On the other hand, how would we get that one sex scene? But the strengths here aren't necessarily in directorial choices so much as it's all in the script, which is especially strong in providing us some extremely awkward and Cringe scenarios that do develop past feeling (potentially) like a one note joke of "Hahaa yes we are for the Lord ::Smile-Rip-Bleed::"
And it's also, most of all, a spectacular showcase for what Brown and Hall can do. I don't know if I've ever seen Brown deliver such a darkly comedic turn, and one laughs because he is playing it so sincerely - my God, when he starts to strip when doing the service for the small gathering, I was about to lose it - but Lee Childs is a, let's say wildly charitably, flawed human who has not so much a Trumpian dimension but like those who are around Trump's orbit. You'd want to feel sorry for this guy if he wasn't so relentlessly digging the hole for himself so fast he's gonna wind up in China.
And meanwhile, Hall has the even more complex part of the film to carry as the woman who didn't, unlike her husband, do anything exactly so scandalous as touching/molesting/who knows with young men. But she is, her predilections for capital S Stylish hats and all, married and committed to this man and she considers this church ultimately *her* church as much as his. By the time she's in that Mime make-up, I feel like she's giving one of those performances you'll read about for years (inasmuch as it will get overlooked, especially by awards branches). For acting students, you can't not see it. Oh, and by the by, Nicole Behaire is 2 for 2 for supporting performances in as many new releases in theaters right now (that also apparently premiered at Sundance)!
So, in brief, this is mostly excellent, gripping, stylistically bold American comedy in a time where theatrically we've been kind of starved for it, and it's more or less for Televangelists what Drop Dead Gorgeous was for beauty pageants.