A powerful document of cruelty and sadism.
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08/01/03
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The Magdalene Sisters (2003)
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Reviews Counted:143
Fresh:129
Rotten:14
Average Rating:7.6/10
Consensus: A typical women-in-prision film made untypical because it's based on real events.
Theatrical Release:Aug 1, 2003 Limited
Box Office: $4,685,516
Synopsis: Peter Mullen's shocking drama THE MAGDALENE SISTERS is based on real events that took place in Ireland from the 1960s until 1996 when an estimated 30,000 young women, considered by their families... [More]
Starring: Geraldine McEwan, Dorothy Duffy, Anne-Marie Duff, Eileen Walsh
Director: Peter Mullan
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Reviews for The Magdalene Sisters
Top CriticAlthough there are welcome moments of humor and warmth, The Magdalene Sisters is frequently painful to watch.
08/01/03
It may well be a stinging attack on the church. But it can also be read as a hymn of praise to the faith.
08/01/03
Top CriticMullan triggers all your emotions -- anger, sorrow, pity, disgust, shame. And once he gets hold of you, he won't let go.
08/01/03
Mullan's movie is undeniably heart-wrenching, but it's also overwrought, sometimes reducing what we're seeing on screen to the level of a very disturbing cartoon.
08/01/03
A superb film.
08/01/03
Angry and deliberately provocative, The Magdalene Sisters sets out to offend those who deserve it.
08/01/03
Top CriticA story that, in its general outline, follows a fairly predictable path, but conveys enough specificity of time and place to give it greater punch than you might expect.
08/01/03
One of the year's most powerful films and an absolute must-see.
08/01/03
Offers a kind of worst-case glimpse into the draconian Magdalene Asylums that were begun in the late 19th century and lasted well into the 1990s.
08/01/03
Top Critic'The Magdalene Sisters' suggests Dickens as reimagined by Kafka.
08/01/03
Mullan's film is strong, and his philosophy is powerful: "teenage girls are an exploited 'ethnic group'", said the director at the 59th Venice Film Festival.
08/01/03
Though there is undeniable gratification in watching the girls' eventual rebellion, there is also the nagging feeling that Peter Mullan has missed the point almost entirely.
08/01/03
Tough drama about Ireland's Catholic homes for "fallen" women is a cruel, wrenching drama with a sting of truth behind every atrocity.
07/31/03
Heartbreakingly bleak.
07/31/03
Mullan has created an emotionally real story, one that has moments of agony and desperation but ultimately, thankfully, enough triumph to make the harrowing experience of watching it endurable.
07/31/03
Mullen's devastating drama is a shocking expose of little-known subject.
07/31/03
The picture is passionate without question, but perhaps passionate to a fault.
07/31/03
One of the most gut-wrenching and expertly told films of the year.
07/31/03
There is a fundamental air of truth about it, a sense that, horrific though things seem, this is how it must have been.
07/31/03
Top CriticLatest News for The Magdalene Sisters
June 24, 2005:
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