Novitiate (2017)

People are voting emotionally.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

I waited to watch this movie for quite a long time yet now, having watched it, I feel slightly sick in my mouth thanks to the banality, lack of accuracy, shallowness and complete misunderstanding of the subject of mystical love and religious vocation in the Catholic church. I regret spending my time on it. Not sure what was the target audience or who could benefit from watching it. The only nice thing I can say about it is photography, thus 1 star.

This movie is good at analysing the psychodrama of convent life but is likely a bit overdrawn and overwrought. As usual, there is an evil Mother Superior bent on humbling and humiliating the sisters and novices, this strays close to cliche but is well-played and genuinely scary. There are echoes of Nazi authoritarianism, e.g. inviting other sisters to condemn each other in a conspiratorial way. It's not all doom and gloom, there are moments of light relief but they are slightly cheesy. In the end, it's hard to decide whether the director is pro- or anti-Vatican II (and the Catholic church generally). We're told at the end that 90,000 nuns in the US renounced their vows after this liberalisation was introduced.

Set in the early 1960s and during the era of Vatican II, a young woman in training to become a nun struggles with issues of faith, the changing church and sexuality. Despite Novitiate's talented cast and the settings or the direction as a whole this was a film way too long, with a story that doesn't go anywhere to be honest and perfomances that are a mixed bag (Melissa Leo did a good job tho for the most part) but a film about nun's that is super slow and is 123 minutes? I think was too much for me and the young women who play some of these girls in terms of perfomances were kinda on and off in my opinion at least. (3/10)

'NOVITATE': Four and a Half Stars (Out of Five)The critically acclaimed religious themed drama, about a nun in training (in the 1960s) who starts to question her faith. It was written and directed by debut feature filmmaker Margaret Betts, and it stars Margaret Qualley, Melissa Leo, Dianna Agron, Morgan Saylor, Liana Liberato, Julianne Nicholson and Denis O'Hare. The film has received mostly positive reviews from critics, and it's also garnered prestigious awards attention as well. I found it to be really well made and involving.At the age of seven, Cathleen Harris (Qualley) was introduced to Catholicism by her agnostic mother (Nicholson), for educational purposes. Cathleen feels drawn to the religion, at the great disappointment of her mother, and at the age of 17 she decides to join a convent as a postulate. She's trained by the extremist Reverend Mother Marie St. Clair (Leo). Reverend Mother tortures the young women she trains, in an obsessive (outdated) belief that it will bring them closer to God, and she rejects modern reforms ordered by the Second Vatican Council. Her methods really put Cathleen, and her faith, to the ultimate test, while Cathleen also must struggle with natural temptations of desire.The film is a lot like a female Catholicism version of 'WHIPLASH' to me, that's what the relationship between Cathleen and Reverend Mother feels like. It's very intense, hard to watch, and at times pretty emotional. Leo is also fantastic in the role, and I definitely wouldn't be surprised to see her get an Oscar nomination for it. The film is also a great examination of what faith and commitment to faith meant for these women at that time. It's definitely an interesting, and emotionally involving, movie to watch.