Novitiate

This film tells the story of a young woman who enters a convent to be a nun, out of her own volition.

Wow, the film may be slow to build up for the finale, but the finale is very profound. I am still rendered speechless and am very saddened by the unintended consequences of the reforms. Having the entire world and the entire reason of existence being invalidated is unimaginable. The film finished for twenty minutes already and I am still having a heavy chest. It is a very profound film.

"Novitiate" is set during the 60s, when the Vatican Second council reformed completely the entire Church, by removing some old practices, being less strict. The story follow a young woman that decides to take her vows to become a nun, during this big transition. The Reverend Mother of the convent is very reluctant on changing rules.

Things start to go south towards the half of the movie: while there are beautiful depictions of relationships and conflicts between characters, on the other hand, there are others that are not deepen enough. For example, sister Mary Grace had a lot of potential, but she is dismissed too quickly. I did not have the chance to know her at all, and she was a key protagonist. There are here and there a few good scenes, but overall I am not really sure if the nun life represented in this movie was very accurate. I know that this kind of life is very hard and you need to earn your vows, and I am aware that there are orders stricter than others, but I felt that it was forced.

The acting is overall pretty decent, but I cannot say that I was astonished by it. I was definitely excepting more from Margaret Qualley, considering her successful career in recent years, but I was disappointed. There are a lot of cringey scenes, that I could not bare. At some point it seemed almost like a parody. I am aware that there are a lot of scenes that are very demanding in terms of acting, but unfortunately most of actresses did not deliver. Honestly, it is not a bad film, but considering the slow pace rhythm and its two hours length, they could come up with something better for sure.

I watched this at home on BluRay from my public library, my wife chose to skip it.

This is one of the better, maybe the best, of the movies I have seen this year. Maybe part of that is being a lifelong Catholic and remembering Vatican II and the changes this spawned in the Church. I was a boy about the same age the girls are depicted here in the early 1960s.

The movie deals with two distinct but interrelated stories. The most significant is the impact Vatican II changes had on cloistered Nuns. Melissa Leo, in a best-actress quality performance, is the Reverend Mother. She has not been outside the grounds for 40 years and she oversees the whole operation, only answering to the Archbishop. She is exact and she is stern, if she thinks a young girl does not have the right stuff she will send them home without review. When she gets instructions from the Archdiocese for changes she is stricken and saddened.

The other story is about a teenage girl from a dysfunctional and mostly Atheistic family. For reasons only she knows she was drawn to this "marriage with Jesus." She is played extremely authentically by Margaret Qualley (daughter of Andie MacDowell) as Cathleen, eventually Sister Cathleen.

The BD has a very informative "extra" showing the writer/director and 5 of the key cast being asked questions and their providing answers to the research and the making of the movie.

Superb movie, a bit underrated in my opinion.

Several story lines, but the main story is that of Cathleen Harris (Margaret Qualley) growing up in rural Tennessee during the 1950's who decides at the age of 17 she wants to become a nun. She grows up in a single parent home, her parents divorced due her father's drinking and abusive behavior. Cathleen's mother Nora (Julianne Nicholson) works in a factory and makes no excuses for the men she shares her bed with.

On a whim Nora takes Cathleen to the local Catholic church, her mother is not religious in the least, but thinks Cathleen should at least have some exposure to church. Cathleen is immediately in awe of the church and it's teachings. When the opportunity to attend a Catholic school comes up, her mother is hesitant, but agrees to let her attend when she is told there are full scholarships available. Cathleen is a quiet, shy girl and makes few friends in the years that she attends. She immerses herself in her studies and her faith. When Cathleen announces to her mother she is entering the convent to become a nun her mother is aghast and begins to think Cathleen has lost her mind. Cathleen listens to her mother's rants, does not say a word in response, and then simply walks away.

Cathleen and nineteen others enter into the convent for a variety of reasons, but none as single minded as Cathleen. Just as she's entering the Sisters of the Beloved Rose convent, Vatican II (1962-1965) is underway which will forever change the Catholic church. Mother Superior (Melissa Lea) has spent forty years at the convent and believes there is no reason for the church to consider its relationship with society or other religions and continues to ignore the Vatican's new direction. She has spent her entire life within the walls of the convent and acknowledges she does not, nor does she want an identity outside of that.

Cathleen undergoes emotional, mental, physical, psychological, sexual, and spiritual self examination as do all who have entered the convent. In the end, only five of the twenty will become "brides of Christ" and become nuns. Her mother can only observe from the outside her daughter's journey and hopes to reunite with her one day soon.

Great movie for people who don't know much about the Catholic church and the changes they've made in attempt to be "more modern." One of the lesser know facts is over 90,000 nuns left their vocations during Vatican II due to those changes, one of which was nuns were no longer required to wear their habits. Word of caution: Not for younger viewers due to sex scenes.

Novitiate is not Audrey Hepburn's The Nun's Story, nor is it The Sound of Music, The Singing Nun, or countless other romances about happy nuns. It's closer to Doubt. This "expose" is merciless showing the almost Marines-like indoctrination of young girls, first to be postulants, then novices, then the real deal.

Although the film doesn't have drill sergeants, it has a super-committed Mother Superior (Melissa Leo). She will punish swiftly with, for instance, the girls kneeling to walk while saying Hail Mary's or disciplining themselves with knotted ropes. But the real torture is the interior questioning of the young women about even the existence of God.

Nevertheless they are moving to become "brides of Christ," which when they dress in bridal gowns for the actual marriage borders on satire, hokum, or downright pathos. As more than one postulant avers, "Where is He?" daily, the girls are giving themselves to God while not feeling the divine presence.

Perhaps the biggest problem is the emergence in the early '60's of Vatican II, that progressive body of prelates that liberalized the Church and demoted the nuns. So much for that disrespect as 90,000 pure souls took the last train outta there.

The central postulant, Cathleen (Margaret Qualley), has a tough time with her vocation, much less her attraction to another hopeful. The complications of sexual yearnings in young women is a nicely figurative way of showing the challenges of taking 17 year old girls from a normal life, which usually involves young men.

Cathleen's mother, Julianne Nicholson (Nora Harris), serves as the vox populi questioning the sanity of the process as she is losing her daughter to these unknown forces of religion. For Catholics, Novitiate is a confirmation; for non-Catholics it's a gloss on the complexity of Catholic faith.