Review of Novitiate

This movie is good at analysing the psychodrama of convent life but is likely a bit overdrawn and overwrought. As usual, there is an evil Mother Superior bent on humbling and humiliating the sisters and novices, this strays close to cliche but is well-played and genuinely scary. There are echoes of Nazi authoritarianism, e.g. inviting other sisters to condemn each other in a conspiratorial way. It's not all doom and gloom, there are moments of light relief but they are slightly cheesy. In the end, it's hard to decide whether the director is pro- or anti-Vatican II (and the Catholic church generally). We're told at the end that 90,000 nuns in the US renounced their vows after this liberalisation was introduced.