Review of The Magdalene Sisters

Provoking outrage from the Vatican, this documentary-based story of the horrors of Roman Catholic laundries where ‘wayward' girls were kept as virtual slaves until the mid-nineties is harrowing. The ‘sins' the three different girls of the story are incarcerated for are, consecutively, being raped, being a single mother, and being attractive to boys. The justification is that men are subject to temptation and that women sin by not saving them from that temptation. One of the most balanced reviews I have read of the film, ironically, was in the Catholic Newspaper, The Tablet. It criticised the film for not suggesting that there would be even a vestige of spirituality in some of the Sisters (which I think would have made it an even more powerful film), but pointed out that since its release not even one single person from the Laundries had come forward to defend them. The film offers no ‘answers' (eg a suggestion that there should have been more government monitoring) but recognises how we ‘forgive' the institutions we grow up with – one of the characters who escapes remains a devout Catholic. The film is not anti-religious – the heroine challenges the head nun at one point by kneeling in prayer. It's main force lies in its shock value backed up by fresh and intense acting – but both as a social statement and as a movie it is admirable rather than earth-shaking.