Amazon.co.uk Review
This Broadway hit gets a solid film treatment by director Norman Jewison but that can't make up for the weaknesses of the script (which were as true onstage as they are here). Jane Fonda plays a chain-smoking shrink sent to a convent to do a psychological evaluation of a novice (Meg Tilly) who gave birth to a baby and then killed it in her little room. Was it a virgin birth? A miracle? And what of the bloody stigmata that seem to spontaneously appear on her hands? Fonda also finds herself clashing with the Mother Superior (Anne Bancroft) over the line between faith and science. But writer John Pielmeier can't flesh this out beyond an idea; in the end, the solution is a disappointingly earthbound one that even the strong acting in this film can't elevate.
--Marshall Fine
Amazon.co.uk Review
Canadian-born director Norman Jewison returned to his native country for
Agnes of God, a psychological drama that plays out mainly in a Catholic convent on the outskirts of Montreal. The script is by John Pielmeier, working from his own stage play, and the film never really throws off its theatrical origins. A young novice, Agnes, gives birth to a child that’s found strangled soon afterwards. To determine the young woman’s state of mind and reach the truth about the killing, the court appoints a psychiatrist, Martha Livingston. Agnes is innocent to the point of idiocy and claims to have no memory of the baby, let alone of its father. Gradually, and despite the hostility of the Mother Superior, Martha gains the young woman’s confidence and inches towards the truth.
From the start it’s clear that the stage is set for a confrontation between faith and reason and that’s just what we get, with Jane Fonda as the psychiatrist and Anne Bancroft as the Mother Superior going head-to-head in a series of increasingly acrimonious clashes. Most of the time the film stays on this fairly schematic level, further loading the dice by making Martha a lapsed Catholic with a failed marriage and an abortion in her own past. As the simple-minded Agnes, Meg Tilly relies mainly on a tight, beatific little smile that soon grows wearisome, while Jewison can’t resist dropping in nudging close-ups of crucifixes and holy pictures at every opportunity.
Still, the chilly, repressive atmosphere of the convent, all whispers and mistrustful sidelong glances, is effectively conjured up, while the two formidable actresses in the lead roles play the lines for all they’re worth and a bit more. Agnes of God is never as significant as it thinks it’s being, and the ending is woefully fudged, but it’s a creditable attempt at an impossible subject. And cinematographer Sven Nykvist brings to it some of the luminous intensity he deployed for Ingmar Bergman.
On the DVD: Agnes of God on disc has zilch in terms of extras, not even a trailer. The transfer preserves the 1.85:1 ratio of the original release. --Philip Kemp
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