O Clube dos Milagres

I wasn't sure what to expect from The Miracle Club, I just knew with a cast that included Maggie Smith, Kathy Bates and Laura Linley that I had to watch it. I was not disappointed in the slightest.

It is a lovely story about a friendship, past mistakes, love and forgiveness.

The casting is brilliant and as usual Smith, Bates and Linley give magnificent performances.

It tells the story of woman who returns to her home village after 40 years away, to attend the funeral of her mother whom she has not seen in all those years. She is met with hostility from her old friend and the mother of her long lost love.

It culminates with them taking a trip to Lourdes all in search of their own miracle.

I really feel honoured to have watched this film and really did not want it to end.

Unusually positive movie of happy endings without becoming syrupy or preachy. Starts a bit slow and contrived, but becomes engaging after the bus to Lourdes departs and a web of hidden relationships and past sins are gradually are explained. Unusual film in that it displays almost an overdose of vivid Catholic imagery. Includes a priest who's a likeable, normal guy. Its portrayal of 1960's Ireland was a fascinating historical throwback. Irish accents were pretty thick. I wish I could have watched with subtitles on because I could not understand some key moments of dialogue. Based on others reactions in the theater, I don't think I was alone in this.

Director Thaddeus O'Sullivan has fashioned a small-scale Irish film that feels as familiar as an old shoe. This 2023 dramedy marks Maggie Smith's last film, and while the role doesn't take much advantage of her sharp-witted feisty persona, her poignant work here serves as a fitting reminder of her enduring legacy. Working alongside Kathy Bates and Laura Linney, she plays Lily, a small town wife and mother living outside of Dublin and still mourning the death of her son forty years earlier. Bates plays her best friend Eileen, herself a wife and mother of six, who fears she may have breast cancer, while Linney plays Chrissie, the estranged Boston-based daughter of another close friend who just passed away. Lily and Eileen, along with their much younger friend Dolly and her inexplicably mute son, convince the local priest to fund a pilgrimage to Lourdes, France, as they seek miracles for their medical ailments and long-held crises in conscience. Because the movie was in turnaround for over twenty years, the actors are far too old for their chronological roles, but it's the kind of pixilated movie where age doesn't matter. That's due to the expectedly fine work from Smith, Bates, and Linney, as well as Agnes O'Casey charming as Dolly, the only one of the four leads with a real Irish brogue. Stephen Rea shows up in two brief scenes as Eileen's curmudgeonly husband.

Given some of the subject matter, "nice" is possibly an odd word but the movie ultimately has an uplifting ending. Plot wise you kind of see it all coming but Maggie Smith, Laura Linney and Kathy Bates and one of the lead actresses from series Say Nothing make it an enjoyable watch.

It is a little odd that Linney doesn't try to even effect a hint of an Irish accent but they're all good actresses. The rest of the cast is slightly less known In scale, the story is pretty small/simple but it works and tells a story about miracles in that occur in ways and places people don't expect.

Forgiveness is a huge part of the story here as well. All the actresses play their parts well and it's comforting to watch them do it.

In the end it's a warm tale. It won't change your life in any significant way but it makes for a "comforting" watch From a technical perspective the visuals, cinematography and direction are ok but not amazing.

It seemed like one of those British feel-good, small scale, movies, that you know that will not sweep you of your feet, but you know that you are going to have fun. And this is exactly what you get, just with a large-scale actress, unlike the ones that has one or two old actors or actresses - now you get three and what an excellent choice of casting.

Its pretty known story about a woman that comes to her hometown after her mother passed away and starts opening closed doors from old and rusty closets from the past. She goes to a road trip with her mothers' old friends to a cause that her mother started and this time we are talking about a holy place in France, which Holly Marry was supposedly watched bathing or something.

Two old ladies and one young woman with a silent child are the supporting characters and almost all of them has a strong connection to the visiting woman and a big secret is about the raddle their reality and ordinary quiet lives. You can sprinkle a little bit religion issues and off course faith stuff and we are inside the heart of the movie and pretty quickly.

It doesn't have anything special as it goes for the script and the actresses doesn't give the one time show of their lives, but all together works good and even tries to get us of the regular movie mold and script limitations. It has some funny-bitter-sweet moments, heart breaking moments, that are not selling very well and it is pretty good.

None of the sub-genre of this movie doesn't represent properly. When it is funny, it is not funny enough and doesn't try to be very comic. When it is sad, it is hardly going to pull any emotion from you and it is not so good with drawing the audience into the heart of the plot, but somehow it manages to get out unharmed.

It is a movie that doesn't want to break the regular road of the script that tries to get to the desired result - give the audience what is expected from it. Just watching those epic actresses join forces together, but the fact they all settle for such a mediocre movie and script gives us hope for better results next time.