Magdalene Sisters, The

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

A pungent, powerful film that points an accusing finger not at religious beliefs but at flawed human institutions. It also targets social and cultural mores that are almost medieval in their patriarchal bias against girls and women.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

Blistering and brilliant work.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

A fierce, brilliant film that breaks (and then mends) your heart.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

The rare movie that turns cruelty into art.

Film Threat K.J. Doughton

Although this ain't Hogwarts, there's full-scale witchery being practiced behind Magdalene's locked doors.

Portland Oregonian Kim Morgan

A picture so powerfully harrowing, its slight shortcomings are forgettable compared to the entire film's cumulative effect. It's that searing.

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

A stirring, emotionally galvanizing film, not only due to its shattering subject matter but thanks to Mullan's spot-on eye for casting and fluid, uncoercive style.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Graced with performers who bring a purity of emotion to their work, the film is always dramatically convincing. There is a fundamental air of truth about it, a sense that, horrific though things seem, this is how it must have been.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Mullan's movie is admiringly uncompromising. He refuses to augment the horrors with relief.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

See The Magdalene Sisters for its own sake; the performances alone are inspirational. But see it too as an example of how powerful a feature film still can be in the hands of an impassioned filmmaker.

Slate David Edelstein

Both a masterpiece and a holy hell: Watching it, you feel you're being punished for a crime you didn't commit. Which puts you, come to think of it, in the same frame of mind as those poor Magdalene girls.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

While it’s perhaps not the best date film of the year, it is a grim and unmistakable masterpiece of bleak, black sorrow.

USA Today Claudia Puig

It is an unsettling tale told simply and chillingly by director Peter Mullan, with stand-out performances, an evocative soundtrack and spare, haunting visuals.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

The picture has immediacy, force and humanity. It's a muckraking work of art.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

The whole system was sadistic and indefensible, and the church, looking the other way as long as profits rolled in from the laundries, deserves the scorn that Mullan and his fine cast heap on it.

New York Post V.A. Musetto

The cast is amazing -- two of the lead actresses are first-timers.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

A harrowing look at institutional cruelty, perpetrated by the Catholic Church in Ireland, and justified by a perverted hysteria about sex.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

It is passionate and angry and rousing where you might expect it to become numbing and depressing.

Variety David Rooney

Mullan's increased maturity as a director is evident in his skill at manipulating light and dark dramatic tones, and shifting between moods of anger and plaintive melancholy.

LA Weekly Scott Foundas

Grim, grueling and triumphantly powerful.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

The Magdalene Sisters would be too painful to watch if it didn't have a silver lining. Suffice it to say that it is possible to fly over this religious cuckoo's nest and remain free. All it takes is courage and the timely kindness of strangers.

New York Magazine Peter Rainer

When it comes time for some of the girls to flee, the result is one of the most emotionally satisfying of all prison breaks.

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

Why was this film made after the homes had already been abolished? One reason, hardly trifling, is that it was made excellently. Thematically, however, it stings -- as a reminder that Catholicism is only one religion that is dominated by males and that this domination is proprietary.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Its brutal take on living under totalitarian rule periodically suggests Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four." Mullan makes the authority figures (such as the nun played by Geraldine McEwan) grimly believable, but as in "Orphans," there are times when he doesn't know when to quit.

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

A rip-roaring feminist yarn that should offer relief to viewers anxious for an alternative to the boys-with-guns flicks of summer.

Premiere Glenn Kenny

The film is beautifully acted by all, but Nora-Jane Noone, as the sloe-eyed orphan Bernadette, is first among equals here, and a genuine find.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

A film of haunting eloquence and justifiable fury.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

If The Magdalene Sisters occasionally flirts with cartoonishness, the movie is tempered by Mullan's considerable filmmaking skills.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

The film is an attack on religious hypocrisy, mixing melodrama and black humour in a volatile blend.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

A powerful document of cruelty and sadism.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

A disturbing and compelling motion picture that depicts the forces that try to suppress the human spirit, and the strength of these girls in overcoming it.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Mullan errs by making all the sisters dragon ladies. Still, the film gets to you; it's a powerhouse.

TV Guide Ken Fox

Generations of healthy spirits were twisted and deformed by the good Sisters of Mercy, all in the name of salvation.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

This shocker is often shameless, not least in the climactic confrontation with Sister Bridget, but it's impossible not to be moved by the ending -- if only because the torture is finally over.

The New Yorker Anthony Lane

Nobody does shrewishness better than McEwan. [8 August 2003, p. 84]

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

The film might have been more powerful, not to mention fair, if the nuns believed they were doing right; only on movie night, when McEwan sees herself in Ingrid Bergman in "The Bells Of St. Mary's," does Mullan grant her so much as the delusion of rectitude.

Film Threat Mark Sells

Though it has a tendency to leave characters undeveloped and storylines empty, the overall portrait is significant.

Dallas Observer Bill Gallo

The horrors therein are vivid, even if the movie is a bit plodding.