In 1985 devoted father of 5 Bill Furlong (Cillian Murphy) discovers disturbing secrets kept by the local convent and uncovers shocking truths of his own.
As my title says, this is a very tricky film to review. It's a heartfelt project which raises issues that cut deep in the religious country of Ireland. The Magdalene Institutions on which it is based, took in women and girls who were pregnant outside of marriage, sex workers, orphans, or just women who did not conform to social expectations of that time. They were typically worked hard and kept in austere circumstances, but the truth of the "Magdalene Laundries" run by nuns of the Roman Catholic faith, came out only when the buried remains of hundreds of women were found. And yet for decades there was talk about these inhuman institutions, run almost like workhouses or even prison camps by the nuns. And no-one did anything as the church was too deeply embedded in society. In the film Bill is warned not to say anything about what he witnessed at the convent, "because the nuns have fingers in everywhere, and if word got out it would backfire on you." And that's how it actually was, we know now. The nuns were evil, brutal women who sought not to rehabilitate, but exact vengeance on women they saw as unfit.
Now, the film reveals a little of that, but only a little. The manner in which it is filmed actually does not help it's message. Cillian Murphy spends a lot of the time in his scenes looking at the ground, or having flashbacks, and it is so much time that he is silent that I almost turned it off. I get that they were trying to offer some trauma from his childhood that explained why he intervened with the convent, but the message was almost lost in the long spans of...frankly...tedious nothingness. There was only 1 girl who we saw being mistreated so it would be easy to say, well all the other ones were treated much better. We now know they were not, but the film doesn't show that. They have taken an arty sort of approach which promotes the film, not the subject of the film.
That's why I think the film is tricky to review. On one hand it's beautiful cinema, albeit with too many, too-long pauses and introspective moments. On the other it is bringing...poorly...a deeply worrying and saddening message about the Magdalene Laundries. So for cinematic I would rate it one way, for the message it was trying to get across I would rate it much less, for the wasted 20 minutes on pauses that were unnecessary, and some flashbacks which being honest, I didn't even understand properly, I would rate it even less again.
I enjoyed it on some level but I think when you review a film of true events that caused trauma to countless thousands of young women over 70 years, you have a responsibility to make it the very best it can be. Front of stage, all of the time, should not be a coalman and his emotions, it should be the women who suffered. I finally decided on a score of 6, but I think I am rating it higher than I feel it should be, because the story...the true story of the Magdalene women, needs to be heard. I would love to see a better version.
