The Magdalene Sisters

The Magdalene Sisters
Movie poster
Directed by	Peter Mullan
Produced by	Frances Higson
Written by	Peter Mullan
Starring	Anne-Marie Duff Nora Jane Noone Dorothy Duffy Geraldine McEwan Eileen Walsh
Music by	Craig Armstrong
Cinematography	Nigel Willoughby
Distributed by	Magna Pacific
Release date(s)	30 August 2002 (2002-08-30) (Venice) 02002-10-25 25 October 2002 Ireland) 02003-02-21 21 February 2003 (United Kingdom)
Running time	119 minutes
Country	United Kingdom Ireland
Language	English
Box office	$20,957,001

The Magdalene Sisters is a 2002 film written and directed by Peter Mullan, about 4 teenage girls who were sent to Magdalene Asylums, (also known as 'Magdalene Laundries'), homes for women who were labelled as "fallen" by their families or society. The homes were maintained by individual religious orders in the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland.

Peter Mullan has remarked that the film was initially made because victims of Magdalene Asylums had received no closure in the form of recognition, compensation, or apology, and many remained lifelong devout Catholics. Former Magdalene inmate Mary-Jo McDonagh told Mullan that the reality of the Magdalene Asylums was much worse than depicted in the film.

Though set in Ireland, it was shot entirely on location in the Dumfries and Galloway area, South-West Scotland.

Plot

The movie is a fictionalized account of life in the Magdalene Laundries, inspired by the real life stories of women interviewed about their time in them.

Set in Ireland, beginning in 1964, so-called 'fallen' women were considered sinners who needed to be redeemed. The film follows the stories of four young women - Margaret (raped by her cousin), Bernadette (too beautiful and coquettish), Rose (an unmarried mother) and Crispina (an intellectually disabled unmarried mother) - who are all forced by their families or caretakers into the Magdalene Asylum. The film details the disastrous lives of the four girls whilst they are inmates of the laundries, portraying their harsh daily regimen, their squalid living conditions and the oppressive nature of the Catholic faith at the time.

Each woman suffers unspeakable cruelty and violence from the Mother Superior, Sister Bridget, despite her gentle-faced appearance and outwardly soft-spoken demeanour. She is characterized as sadistic and almost inhuman at times, as conveyed through her merciless beating of Rose in full view of Bernadette, or when she mockingly laughs at Una as she hopelessly clutches at her fallen hair locks. It is never made explicit whether Sister Bridget needlessly behaves tyrannically or if she earnestly believes her actions necessary in the eyes of God (it could also be seen as internalised misogyny).

The film also criticises the hypocrisy and corruption within the staff of the laundries. Sister Bridget relishes the money the business receives and it is suggested that little of it is distributed appropriately. Those who liken themselves to Mary Magdalene, who deprived herself of all pleasures of the flesh including food and drink, eat hearty breakfasts of buttered toast and bacon while the working women subsist on oatmeal. In one particularly humiliating scene, the women are forced to stand naked in a line after taking a communal shower. The nuns then hold a "contest" on who has the most pubic hair, biggest bottom, biggest breasts and more. The corruption of the resident priest, Father Fitzroy, is made very clear through his sexual abuse of Crispina.

Three of the girls are shown, to some extent, to triumph over their situation and their captors. Margaret, although she is allowed to leave by the intervention of her younger brother, does not leave the asylum without leaving her mark. When she deliberately asks Sister Bridget to step aside for her to freely pass and is sharply shot down, Margaret falls to her knees in prayer. The Mother Superior is so surprised, she only moves past her after the Bishop tells her to come along. Bernadette and Rose finally decide to escape together, trashing Sister Bridget's study in search for the key to the asylum door and engaging her in a suspenseful confrontation. The two girls escape her clutches and are helped to return to the real world by a sympathetic relative, their story optimistically ending when Rose boards a coach bound for the ferry to Liverpool and Bernadette becomes an apprentice hairdresser. Crispina's end, however, is not a happy one; she spends the rest of her days in a mental institution (where she was sent to silence her from revealing the sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of Father Fitzroy) and she dies of anorexia at age 24.

The epilogue to the film gives a brief description of the lives of four of the inmates after the girls leave the asylum by the late 1960s. It is noted that the last Magdalene asylum closed in 1996.

Characters

• Margaret: After telling her family she was raped by a cousin at a family wedding, Margaret is sent to the laundry as her father believes she lured her cousin into the act. She takes Crispina under her wing, despite Crispina being the longer-serving inmate. Margaret tries to ensure Crispina's safety, although her efforts sometimes unwittingly cause harsh consequences for Crispina. Margaret cares very much for her friend and promises to find Crispina's holy St Christopher pendant after it is stolen by another girl. After catching a glimpse of Father Fitzroy forcing Crispina to fellate him, Margaret mixes poison ivy in with his undergarments to make him break out in a rash, as an act of revenge on Crispina's behalf. She is eventually freed when her younger brother comes to collect her four years after her incarceration in the asylum.
• Bernadette: Bernadette is a beautiful teenage orphan who is sent to the Magdalene Laundry because she is flirtatious with the boys at the orphanage. However Bernadette, unlike the other three girls, is still a virgin. Bernadette makes a disastrous attempt to escape from the asylum shortly after she arrives by trying to convince a male employee to agree to marry her and then elope, and has her hair cut off in punishment. She remains the most rebellious and headstrong of the girls, making her hatred for the asylum clearly felt. She is ultimately good, helping the other girls and, in one scene, momentarily relinquishes her stony attitude when the laundry overseer dies, kissing her on the forehead. She eventually escapes the asylum with Rose after wrestling for the key with Sister Bridget.
• Rose/Patricia: Rose finds herself in the laundry after having a baby out of wedlock. She is prepared to work hard for the sins she has committed, in the hope that she may see her son again one day. Sister Bridget says she will be called by her confirmation name, 'Patricia', because the laundry already has a girl named Rose. Rose becomes increasingly resentful of her lack of freedom after she is denied sending her son a birthday card. After she is severely beaten by Sister Bridget for talking to Crispina's sister and son through the gate, she agrees to escape with Bernadette. She symbolically regains her identity by reverting to her birth name at the end, telling the woman: "My name is Rose." The movie later states that she is reunited with her son after years of searching.
• Harriet/Crispina: Crispina's real name is Harriet; but the nuns have nicknamed her Crispina - which means 'curly-haired girl', even though the hair on her head is straight. In a scene where the nuns are taunting the naked girls over various physical attributes while in the shower room, the nuns cruelly point out Crispina has much more pubic hair than the others, which explains the laundry name. She was sent to the laundry for giving birth to a child out of wedlock. She is poorly educated and intellectually disabled, and believes she deserves the treatment she receives at the hands of the nuns. Because of her mental state, Crispina sometimes does or says strange things, such as she believing her St Christopher pendant is a 'holy telephone' through which she can speak with her sister and her son. Crispina attempts to hang herself after her cherished St Christopher is stolen by Bernadette, but she is saved by Margaret. Margaret witnesses Father Fitzroy sexually abusing Crispina, and decides to punish him by placing poison ivy leaves in with his undergarments. At an outdoor mass, Father Fitzroy begins to violently tear his clothing off, as the poison ivy is causing him to break out in hives. Crispina lifts the front of her dress, and all can see she has a similar rash in between her thighs. Crispina begins chanting "You are not a man of God" louder and louder. To prevent others from finding out about the abuse, the nuns force Crispina into a mental institution, where she is seen in a psychotic state. The movie states she dies at the institution at the age of 24, due to anorexia.
• Sister Bridget, Mother Superior: The sadistic and greedy Sister Bridget is soft-spoken and gentle-faced, but commits acts of unbelievable cruelty. Money-hungry, she relishes counting the profits from the laundry. She often punishes the girls through humiliating acts; in one scene she is cutting off Una's hair nonchalantly as she reprimands Bernadette and Cristina for talking out of turn. In another scene she violently attacks Rose.
• Father Fitzroy: Resident priest who is sexually abusing Crispina.
• Una O'Connor: Una is first mentioned as having run away, and next appears being dragged back into the dormitory by her hair by her father, who angrily thrashes her, calls her a "slut" and warns her never to come home. It is suggested that she was sent to the asylum for having premarital sex or a baby out of wedlock. Una later has all her hair cut off by Sister Bridget to discourage her from escaping again. Sister Bridget chuckled at her that all her hair is useless. After this episode, Una is quickly broken down by the nuns and it is announced that she has petitioned to take Holy Orders and become a nun herself. It is insinuated that Father Fitzroy is involved in her petition.
• Sister Jude, Sister Clementine and Sister Augusta: Other nuns who also abuse and humiliate their charges.

Cast

• Anne-Marie Duff : Margaret McGuire
• Nora Jane Noone : Bernadette Harvey
• Dorothy Duffy : Rose/Patricia Dunne
• Eileen Walsh : Harriet/Crispina
• Geraldine McEwan : Sister Bridget
• Daniel Costello : Father Fitzroy
• Mary Murray : Una O'Connor
• Frances Healy : Sister Jude
• Eithne McGuinness : Sister Clementine
• Phyllis MacMahon : Sister Augusta
• Britta Smith : Katy
• Rebecca Walsh : Josephine
• Eamonn Owens : Eamonn, Margaret's brother
• Chris Patrick-Simpson : Brendan
• Sean Colgan : Seamus
• Lisa Branney : Orphan

Critical reception

The film received very positive reviews from critics. As of 25 October 2008, the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 90% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 144 reviews. Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 83 out of 100, based on 38 reviews — indicating "universal acclaim". This made it the twentieth best reviewed film of the year. The film appeared on several US critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2003.

• 3rd: Ty Burr, The Boston Globe
• 6th: Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune
• 6th: Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly
• 7th: Jack Mathews, Daily News (New York)
• 8th: Carla Meyer, San Francisco Chronicle
• 9th: V.A. Musetto, New York Post
• 10th: Claudia Puig, USA Today

The film also received critical acclaim when it was premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2002, culminating with Peter Mullan taking home the festival's highest prize the Golden Lion.

See also

• Christian feminism
• Magdalene Asylum
• Misery lit
• Mary Norris

External links

• The Magdalene Sisters at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Magdalene Sisters at the Internet Movie Database
• The Magdalene Sisters at Box Office Mojo