Jes­si­ca Chas­tain prais­es the good lord in The Eyes of Tam­my Faye trailer

A quick primer on the improb­a­ble jour­ney of Tam­my Faye Mess­ner, née LaVal­ley, for­mer­ly Bakker: she and ex-hus­band Jim Bakker rose to the top of the tel­e­van­ge­list world in the ​’70s and ​’80s, only to be top­pled by his fis­cal malfea­sance and her sup­port of the gay com­mu­ni­ty dur­ing the AIDS epi­dem­ic. She went on to claim that her manip­u­la­tive hus­band per­vert­ed her faith with his greed mas­querad­ing in the guise of a pros­per­i­ty gospel, and made a turn to the light.

This sur­pris­ing tale was chron­i­cled in a 2000 doc­u­men­tary that’s now get­ting the Hol­ly­wood drama­ti­za­tion treat­ment, with Jes­si­ca Chas­tain in the lead role. Today brings the first trail­er, and a look at her per­for­mance of bold going-for-it-ness, near­ly unrec­og­niz­able in pan­cake make­up, a pros­thet­i­cal­ly altered jaw­line, and a down-home coun­try twang.

In the new film from Michael Showal­ter, she appears along­side Andrew Garfield (as her oily hus­band, Jim Bakker) and Vin­cent D’Onofrio (as Jer­ry Fal­well, the king­mak­er of the Chris­t­ian right) to recount Tam­my Faye’s sur­pris­ing rise and fall. We get a peek at her less-than-tune­ful singing as well, the real Tam­my Faye hav­ing giv­en a side career as a record­ing artist a whirl.

In the press, Chas­tain has been vocal about her com­mit­ment to pro­duc­ing and star­ring in films that show­case com­plex female char­ac­ters find­ing their own strength, a pledge reflect­ed in her recent gig on Molly’s Game and in her upcom­ing all-women spy thriller The 355. The Eyes of Tam­my Faye would also appear to fall square­ly into the cat­e­go­ry, paint­ing its sub­ject as an earnest woman tak­en advan­tage of who then clawed back into con­trol of her own life.

With the release sched­uled for mid-Sep­tem­ber, right in the thick of the Toron­to Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val, a pre­mière there should be all but assured. As a mid-bud­get, star-filled char­ac­ter piece, it’ll be right at home in the ear­ly throes of awards sea­son, posit­ing Chas­tain as a pos­si­ble con­tender ear­ly on.

The Eyes of Tam­my Faye will come to cin­e­mas in the US and UK on 17 September.