Our Ladies

The choir of a Scottish Catholic girls' school is taken to a competition in Edinburgh. The five girls do not care about the competition: the few hours in the city are for bars, boys and drink. But each of them is carrying something. Orla has just come through an illness and keeps a list of things she wants to do. Finnoula feels the class difference most sharply. Kay is about to leave them behind and is not saying so. The film opens as a teenage comedy, but what is funny hardens as it goes: all of these girls are standing in front of doors that class has closed, and in a single day they learn how few options there are. Michael Caton-Jones directed and co-wrote, from Alan Warner's 1998 novel The Sopranos. The music sits inside the story: the girls keep singing songs by the same band, and the choir rehearsals and the bar scenes are tied together through that sound. Who it is for: anyone who likes Scottish cinema and youth films with a female ensemble. Who it is not for: anyone wanting decorum. The language is very coarse, sex is discussed directly, and several of the five are underwritten.