Reviews
Rolling Stone - ...The film gets to you; it's a powerhouse..., New York Times - ...Grim, powerful..., Entertainment Weekly - ...Fearless and powerful....THE MAGDALENE SISTERS is the rare movie that turns cruelty into art..., Los Angeles Times - ...Graced with performers who bring a purity of emotion to their work, the film is always dramatically convincing..., USA Today - ...It is an unsettling tale told simply and chillingly by director Peter Mullan, with stand-out performances, an evocative soundtrack and spare, haunting visuals...
Additional Information
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 profit-making laundries run by the Sisters of Magdalene Order. However, the "acts" that lead to the girls miserable imprisonment were clearly not punishable. What's worse, the nuns were cruel money grabbers 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 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 mum 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. This expertly crafted, haunting film, presents Mullen's second feature film, following 1999's ORPHANS.
