The following review makes reference to the 2017 film Novitiate, and does not contain spoilers of any type.
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Year: 2017
Category: Drama.
Director: Maggie Betts.
Cast: Margaret Qualley, Sasha Mason, Eliza Mason, Melissa Leo, Julianne Nicholson, Dianna Agron, Rebecca Dayan, Morgan Saylor, Maddie Hasson, Liana Liberato, Eline Powell, Chelsea Lopez, Denis O'Hare, Chris Zylka, Ashley Bell, Marco St. John, Marshall Chapman.
Plot
In the 1960s, the 17-year-old Cathleen, who lives with her non-religious single mother in a rural area of Tennessee, decides to serve God, but during her novitiate begins to question her Catholic faith while receiving training to become a nun.
Opinion
The film tells mainly the story of Cathleen Harris. When Cathleen was seven years old her parents, Nora and Chuck, separated, so she stayed with her mother in rural Tennessee. There Nora, despite not being religious, allows Cathleen to know the Church.
Later, when Cathleen is 12 years old, a couple of nuns offer her a scholarship in a school for Catholic girls, and Nora accepts, so Cathleen begins to relate to the Catholic Church and her faith. Later, when Cathleen is 17 years old, decides to join the Sisters of the Beloved Rose despite her mother's opposition. There Cathleen will be a postulant for six months in their convent, after which she will become a novice for a year and a half, and then make her final vows to become a nun.
During this period the Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican was held, however, the Reverend Mother Marie Saint-Clair, resisted the change and decided to ignore the reforms and continue with the old practices still against the authority of the Church. Slowly it shows the different conflicts that arise from the decisions made by Mother Marie Saint-Clair and those who oppose her, it also shows the reasons why each one of the candidates decided to join the convent, and of course the way in which Cathleen is related to all the events.
The direction is not bad for this type of film, Maggie Betts, director and writer, does not necessarily do badly, however, I feel that it does not make the film interesting, for the viewer it is difficult to sympathize with the characters, sometimes gives more protagonism and depth to the secondary characters, who because we are archetypes can understand better than the main ones. On the other hand, the performances are good, except for the scene between Chris Zylka and Julianne Nicholson at the beginning of the film.
Margaret Qualley does not do badly, but I never got to understand her character, I do not know if the problem was her performance or certain incoherencies in the script. Dianna Agron plays her character very well. But without a doubt the praises are for Melissa Leo, who manages to convince us with her performance, perfectly conveys the essence of her character.
It is a technically acceptable film, in the sense that it does not have huge faults, however, if it has faults that affect the final result, being its main problem wanting to tell two or three different stories and not going deep enough in any.
On the one hand, it talks about how the reform destroys everything that a group of people have defended for a long time, and how they resist what they consider destruction, and on the other hand tries to speak vaguely about the faith, while shows the reasons, the experience of some of the postulants and the different reactions of their relatives to that decision.
Trailer
Score
5/10
Technically acceptable, although not necessarily good, the best is the interpretation of the actors, but the characters are not well developed. At the moment of publishing this review this film is available in the Netflix catalog of Spain.