Based on true accounts and set in Ireland in the 1960's, three teenage girls are sent, against their will, to a convent for various reasons (pregnancy, rape, "too pretty"). The Magdalene Asylums, in existence until 1996, were not unlike the "orphanages" run by the Catholic Church in Québec, during the Duplessis years. The inmates were treated as slaves, made to work in laundries and treated cruelly by those one could never imagine working in God's name.
These unlucky girls, believers in the all-powerful Catholic church, suffer cruelty at the hands of nuns and brothers, often made to feel ashamed and of their sexuality, generating mental illness and self-loathing. The struggle, throughout the plot, is to make it out alive, despite the Asylum's religious roots to save prostitutes as early as the mid 1800's.
This story, brilliantly acted, directed and written leaves virtually nothing to the imagination, which is intentional right from the beginning. The brutality is shown for what it is; in fact, one of the original "inmates" later described the movie as much worse in reality.
At a loss for words, I do not have the eloquence to do this movie justice. If you are not afraid to question the Catholic Church's actions, or have suffered at the hands of it -as my French-Canadian family did- I strongly recommend this artful and historically-revealing movie.
These unlucky girls, believers in the all-powerful Catholic church, suffer cruelty at the hands of nuns and brothers, often made to feel ashamed and of their sexuality, generating mental illness and self-loathing. The struggle, throughout the plot, is to make it out alive, despite the Asylum's religious roots to save prostitutes as early as the mid 1800's.
This story, brilliantly acted, directed and written leaves virtually nothing to the imagination, which is intentional right from the beginning. The brutality is shown for what it is; in fact, one of the original "inmates" later described the movie as much worse in reality.
At a loss for words, I do not have the eloquence to do this movie justice. If you are not afraid to question the Catholic Church's actions, or have suffered at the hands of it -as my French-Canadian family did- I strongly recommend this artful and historically-revealing movie.