The Magdalene Sisters

Three young women in Ireland are sent to the same institution. One was raped at a wedding, one gave birth outside marriage, one was considered dangerous for being too pretty. The institution is a laundry; nuns run it, the women work without pay, and leaving is possible only if a family member comes to collect them. The subject is not faith but the economics of a business established in the name of morality. The laundries made money and keeping the women there was profitable; the film shows this openly and lays bare the calculation beneath the religious justification. The form is cold and unshowy. The violence is mostly indirect; what is unbearable is the repetition, the silence and time refusing to pass. The production caused a large argument. The Vatican's newspaper attacked it sharply and wrote that it targeted the church. The film won the Golden Lion at Venice in 2002 regardless. The narrative rests on real testimony; the last of these laundries closed in 1996. Anne-Marie Duff, Nora-Jane Noone and Dorothy Duffy play the three women, with Geraldine McEwan as the mother superior. Peter Mullan directs. Who it is for: viewers interested in films about institutional violence and recent Irish history. Who it is not for: anyone the subject will strain; the film softens no scene.