Review of Novitiate (2017) by Bill S — 13 Apr 2018
Marvelous, beautiful, and startling. This is a movie filled with quiet beauty and intense emotional violence at the same time. We get more than a glimpse of what to us is completely foreign, incomprehensible territory without overlarding the story with constant backstory on Vatican II and its upshot in the Roman Catholic communities around the world.
When Vatican II's prescriptive "modernism" measures ARE finally spelled out for us (and the others in the convent), it is done in a restrained manner that is all the more devastating because of this restraint.
Melissa Leo is grand and terrifying, but no less human, and Julianne Nicholson - who reminds me of mid-career Shirley MacLaine every time I see her - is more than a match for her in their long scene together, and just as remarkable elsewhere.
As for the novitiates, they are a memorably scared, confused, and individual lot, revolted by their bodies yet helpless against them; if anything, this movie argues that great faith does not require "religion.
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This review of Novitiate (2017) was written by Bill S on 13 Apr 2018.
Novitiate has generally received positive reviews.
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