It's never too late to discover a great movie. And a spectacular performance.
You'll find both in The Magdalene Sisters (2002).
This is one of those movies I had been intent on seeing but never quite able to negotiate it into the DVD player. Until last night.
Please don't wait as long as I did.
The Magdalene Sisters is a wrenching account — based on true stories — of life inside the barbaric Magdalene Laundries Of Ireland. Women were sent to these de facto prisons for crimes such as being raped, overtly liking boys and having a baby out of wedlock. The film explores the harrowing cruelty inside one such place — through the eyes of three inmates:
Margaret is the one who was raped. Bernadette liked flirting. Rose had a baby without being married.
Written and directed by the estimable Peter Mullan (a brilliant Scottish actor who's appeared in such films as Braveheart, My Name is Joe and Miss Julie), The Magdalene Sisters is not easy but it is riveting. On its surface, the movie is a bald indictment of the Catholic Church's treatment of women — the nuns who run the joint are either steadfastly cruel or bug-eye crazy. Some are both. The inmates are all innocent victims.
But there is more going on than a big fuck-you to the Pope and the Sisters of Mercy and all the freaky sex-starved priests out there.
(Ed. I had the Sisters of Mercy for eight years of grade-school and they weren't all that sadistic; though there was a preponderance of bad breath. Could the order not pony up for some Listerine? )
The lasting effects of sustained, indefinite abuse are explored with a gripping attention to detail and an unflinching eye.
The movie ultimately is not just an indictment of the Catholic Church — it is relevant in a searing, I-dare-you-to look-away fashion. You can't help but think about the Taliban, honor killing and ritual circumcision — especially when you realize that the last laundry in Ireland closed its doors in 1996.
Yes — 1996.
We like to believe that backward, primitive barbarism is the province of far-away, of those who are nothing like us. Clearly, it's closer to us than we think.
The Vatican denounced the movie when it was released. I couldn't possibly come up with a better reason to watch it.
The great performance?
In a film with not a false acting note, a woman named Eileen Walsh steals the show. She plays Crispina, a mentally handicapped woman interred so she won't be taken advantage of by predators. So naturally she ends up blowing the parish priest.
Walsh (she's the one on the right) is stunning. She is funny, heartbreaking and sometimes downright scary. The fact that her performance generated zero interest or attention is mind-boggling.
Or maybe its not.
This movie is a a test of wills. Let your will win — it'll be worth it.
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