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Review

A star rating of 3 out of 5.

A teenage girl is forced to remain in a convent in this adaptation of Denis Diderot's infamous, anti-clerical 18th-century novel. The misfortune of Suzanne (Pauline Etienne) is that her cash-strapped aristocratic parents have exhausted their coffers paying for the dowries of her older sisters, so holy orders are the solution, though Suzanne soon finds her faith shaken by the rituals and hypocrisy she encounters behind the high walls. While Jacques Rivette's 1965 version of the same story (La Religieuse) was initially suppressed by the Catholic Church in France, this update by Gallic journeyman Guillaume Nicloux is unlikely to cause a stir. It's a generally classy yet dramatically underpowered affair traversing a steady path between respectable costume drama and habit-lifting exploitation. Etienne acquits herself well in the lead though, and her journey from spiritual ambivalence towards outright rebellion keeps the story on track. Even so, she is outshone by the late arrival of Isabelle Huppert as a sinister Mother Superior with some very worldly obsessions.

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Credits

Cast

rolename
Suzanne SimoninPauline Etienne
Supérieure Saint-EutropeIsabelle Huppert
Supérieure ChristineLouise Bourgoin
Madame Simonin, mère de SuzanneMartina Gedeck
Madame de MoniFrançoise Lebrun
Soeur ThérèseAgathe Bonitzer
Soeur UrsuleAlice de Lencquesaing
Père de SuzanneGilles Cohen

Crew

rolename
DirectorGuillaume Nicloux

Details

Theatrical distributor
Metrodome
Released on
2013-11-01
Languages
Latin | French
Formats
Colour
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