The movie is an indictment of systems that perpetuate oppression and exploitation by making the administrators believe their every cruel act is justified and by compelling complicity in victims and bystanders.
Comment
03/11/08
The Magdalene Sisters (2003)
90 %
Reviews Counted: 144 Fresh: 130 Rotten:14 Average Rating: 7.6/10
Consensus:
A typical women-in-prision film made untypical because it's based on real events.
Runtime: 1 hr 59 mins
Synopsis: Peter Mullen's shocking drama THE MAGDALENE SISTERS is based on real events that took place in Ireland from the 1960s until 1996 when an estimated 30,000 young women, considered by their families to have committed sexual sins, were sent away from their homes to earn penitence working in... [More]
Genre: Dramas
Starring: Geraldine McEwan, Dorothy Duffy, Anne-Marie Duff, Eileen Walsh, Nora-Jane Noone
Reviews
A damning indictment of the Catholic Church that lingers in the mind long after if ends. Angry, compassionate but never hysterical, this a true cinematic achievement.
03/11/08
Top Critic
A deliberately provocative film that triggers the audience's emotions in order to highlight important issues of personal freedom. Amen to that.
12/30/06
Top Critic Top Critic
This extraordinary film is celluloid incendiarism, rabble-rousing cinema with a delirious, delicious edge of black comedy which I estimate to be about 90-95% intentional.
03/25/03
Top Critic
It’s occasionally heavy-handed and emotionally manipulative, but the subject matter justifies the anger you’ll feel.
02/22/03
A harrowing insight into a dark period of religious repression, and a personal triumph for the multi-tasking Mr Mullan.
11/23/02
Top Critic
The film is forceful, perhaps a bit too tidy, but thoroughly accessible, moving and ultimately devastating stuff.
10/24/02
This drama about a shocking reality from recent history balances a light touch with searing intensity and a sense of moral outrage.
03/11/08
Top Critic
This is a riveting piece of drama about a forgotten slice of history, no matter what the esteemed movie critics at the Vatican say about it.
09/27/07
The Magdalene Sisters isn't perfect, but it sheds light on a story that needed to be told.
03/05/05
Mullan has made a vicious and relentless film, but his outrage is well-earned.
01/27/05
Mullan has done an expert job of creating a harrowing atmosphere without pulling punches or excluding a sharp sense of humor without slipping into bad taste.
05/21/04
Seething with moral outrage...If Mullan sins, it’s that his anger gets the better of him. He sacrifices dramatic flow on the altar of polemics.
03/25/04
Its mode is that of 'a story that needs to be told,' lest we forget the marginalized lessons of history... worth seeing at least once.
02/15/04
A gut-wrenching expose of the mistreatment of young Irish women at the hands of men, the government and the Catholic Church.
02/02/04
Bracing and potent, though the film's stylistic polish is sometimes tonally counterintuitive
01/29/04
A harrowing indictment of the atrocities performed in the name of organized religion.
01/27/04
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