Mark Menegatti ᴏsᴀ
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I started the film feeling bad for the film-makers, knowing general audiences don't care for religious stories. As it continued, I found abysmal disappointment. Having grown up with amazing, loving Sisters (including my aunt) who found something beautiful to dedicate their lives to, the film was incapable of portraying a genuinely human Sister. The filmmakers were hung up on there being either a life of misery or happiness. Incapable of believing that happiness can coincide w vowed religious, & fulfillment is impossible alongside chastity. The film relies on shallow dichotomies and ignorance of the bigger picture of religious life to get its story through. Having lived happily ten years in vowed religious life as a friar, I am bored with this film. It cannot ask the truly penetrating questions of the contradiction of religious life and the reform of the Council. I wouldn't bother to rate a movie for one star, but story wise I had such a disappointing experience. I knew I would be in store for some real problems when the NOVICES were referred to as NOVITIATES. Aw bless your heart.
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Ellen Beauchamp
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As a young nun in the Novitiate during those years, the truth of this challenge is poignantly accurate - the transition from mere compliance to the medieval ideas of holiness and sanctity to the questioning of faith and serving and God... compelling and reminiscence is this!!