The Magdalene Sisters
AKA: Die Unbarmherzigen Schwestern
(2002)Director: Peter Mullan
Cast:
| Geraldine McEwan | ........................ | Sister Bridget |
| Anne-Marie Duff | ........................ | Margaret |
| Nora-Jane Noone | ........................ | Bernadette |
| Dorothy Duffy | ........................ | Rose/Patricia |
| Eileen Walsh | ........................ | Crispina/Harriet |
| Mary Murray | ........................ | Una |
| Britta Smith | ........................ | Katy |
| Frances Healy | ........................ | Sister Jude |
| Eithne Mcguinness | ........................ | Sister Clementine |
| Phyllis MacMahon | ........................ | Sister Augusta |
| Rebecca Walsh | ........................ | Jospehine |
| Eamonn Owens | ........................ | Eamonn, Margaret's brother |
| Chris Simpson | ........................ | Brendan |
| Sean Colgan | ........................ | Seamus |
| Daniel Costello | ........................ | Father Fitzroy |
What's worse, the nuns were cruel money grubbers who worked the girls to the point of exhaustion, and used poor living conditions and psychological abuse to break and brainwash the girls into subservience. The awful treatment the nuns gave these innocent young women was terrifying, and the ways the girls suffered were utterly disturbing.
Mullen designed the fictional characters in the film based on interviews with actual survivors of the laundries, working their stories into his plot.
Margaret (Anne-Marie Duff) is a shy girl who is raped by her cousin at a wedding shaming her family, Patricia/Rose (Dorothy Duff) gets pregnant and her parents take her baby away from her, Bernadette (Nora-Jane Noone) is a pretty girl who is deemed "too flirtatious," and Crispina (Eileen Walsh) is a loving young mom whose children are forbidden to see her and are being raised by her sister.
The imposing Sister Bridget (Geraldine McEwan) is pure evil, and will strike fear into the souls of Magdalene viewers. With this expertly crafted, haunting film, Mullen presents his second feature, following 1999's Orphans.
Review: In exaggerating the offenses and portraying the clergy as inhuman monsters, Mullan actually weakens the impact of his film. To make matters worse, the movie was made years after the laundry houses were closed so any point the movie makes is moot. Read More....
Review by Mark R. Leeper: With only a few minor substitutions this could be the sort of women's prison film Ida Lupino could have directed. Instead it is about women committed by their families to work in convents as penitents. This is pretty strong stuff when you realize all the abuses in it are based on fact and actually happened to somebody. But the film still never really rises above prison melodrama or as lurid expose. Read More....
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Trailer: View Magdalene Sisters trailer
Runtime: 119 mins.
