The Magdalene Sisters

You come away from the movie not just convinced but cowed.

This drama about a shocking reality from recent history balances a light touch with searing intensity and a sense of moral outrage.

Grimly believable.

A deliberately provocative film that triggers the audience's emotions in order to highlight important issues of personal freedom. Amen to that.

You may never look at a nun the same way again.

A grim and unmistakable masterpiece of bleak, black sorrow.

The Magdalene Sisters is an intense watch, but one that allows its central characters a sense of hope and power, even amid the atrocities.

A disturbing, heartbreaking and gripping portrait of religious paranoia manifested through violence.

The movie is an indictment of systems that perpetuate oppression and exploitation by making the administrators believe their every cruel act is justified and by compelling complicity in victims and bystanders.

A damning indictment of the Catholic Church that lingers in the mind long after if ends. Angry, compassionate but never hysterical, this a true cinematic achievement.