The Magdalene Sisters

views updated

The Magdalene Sisters ★★★½ 2002 (R)

Semi-fictionalized stories of four young Irish women sentenced to life in a religious labor camp run by the Sisters of the Magdalene Order from 1964 to 1969. Their “crimes” include overt flirtatiousness, having been raped, bearing a child out of wedlock, and other perceived sexual offenses. They're treated cruelly by the ogre in authority, Sister Bridget (McEwan) and any attempt at escape is met with more brutality. Grim, powerful film captures the atrocities of 1960s-era Irish Catholicism with frightful clarity. 119m/C VHS, DVD . GB IR Geraldine McEwan, Anne-Marie Duff, Nora-Jane Noone, Dorothy Duffy, Eileen Walsh, Mary Murray, Britta Smith, Frances Healy, Eithne McGuinness, Daniel Costello; D: Peter Mullan; W: Peter Mullan; C: Nigel Willoughby; M: Craig Armstrong. Venice Film Fest. ‘02: Film.