Agnes of God [Region 2]
by Norman Jewison
![Agnes of God [Region 2]](/images/Agnes-of-God-Region-2-B00005UWUF-L.jpg)
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DVD details
Actor: Anne Bancroft, Anne Pitoniak, Jane Fonda, Meg Tilly, Winston RekertDirector: Norman Jewison
DVD: Region Code 2
Audio: English (Original Language); French (Original Language)
Format: PAL
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
DVD Reviews of Agnes of God [Region 2]
DVD Review: Agnes of Gawd
Summary: 1 Stars
Did this movie have a point? I really don't think it did. Its unbriphilous director, Norman Jewison, seemed to try his best to make something of what he had to work with, but even a talent-oozing cast and a picturesque setting couldn't do much to deliver on what had sounded to me like an intriguing tale. Oh, well, maybe other people saw the emperor's clothes but I just saw his doodle.DVD Review: If only the possibilities were as richly convincing as the performances...
Summary: 3 Stars
I am a huge fan of ambiguity; honestly, for I think that a movie that moves you to question what you think you know is beyond important. It challenges our views of certainty and challenges us to contemplate a reality different than the one we have already accepted as definite. Because of this I can't really come down too hard on `Agnes of God' for trying to be just that. Sadly, the film doesn't fully accomplish the task, but it is a valiant effort at least.
The film revolves around a young nun, Sister Agnes, who violently gives birth to a child and then murders the baby. Psychologist Dr. Martha Livingston is given the task of determining whether or not Agnes is crazy, but in order to get to Agnes she has to go through the overly protective Mother Miriam Ruth. Martha has her own quorums with faith and religion that move her to butt-heads with Mother Miriam, but it is apparent that both want what is best for Agnes, they just both see a different answer to the question of `what is best'.
I'm yelling SPOILERS even though I don't really think that they are.
The problem I have with this particular films ambiguities is that they don't really validate themselves. We are meant to believe that there are two viable options to Agnes's conception; namely that she was unfaithful to god by having relations with a man, or that she was divinely impregnated. Dr. Livingston looks at things logically while Mother Miriam is insistent that the child was a child of god. The mere fact that the birth resulted in the murder of a child somewhat disputes Mother Miriam's whole argument and thus leaves the audience conflicted, for they want to embrace to possibility but are unable to, for accepting it would seem morally wrong; as if to admit that god would choose such an unstable vessel. The film also never backs up its claims with any real weight. It never gives us explanations as to why we should keep our options open. These few plot holes leave the ending more absolute than ambiguous, which then just comes out overly frustrated because they refuse to tie up the loose ends that they have created.
However off balance the films construction and or script was, there is no denying the fact that the performances within are beyond superb.
I am not a huge fan of Jane Fonda's style of acting. It seems almost too methodic, as if she is really thinking too hard. This comes across more here than it does in some of her other work. That said, she is effective and at times moving, but she is not the `superb' part I was talking about. No, it is Anne Bancroft and Meg Tilly who sum up my feelings on the films performances, and they sum them up with grace and power. Both actresses were Oscar nominated, and rightfully so (although I tend to think BOTH actress should have been in the `Supporting Actress' category). Bancroft plays Mother Miriam, the stern and matronly caretaker to young Agnes. Her beliefs are strong and they play a huge role in her approach to the situation at hand. She comes across cold and bitter yet she is at heart very loving and sincere. Meg Tilly is even more impressive as Agnes, capturing her jaded innocence with such heart and soul. We can see her suffering below the surface while she attempts to create a person filled with the grace of god.
In the end I can say that `Agnes of God' is a good film, but it fails to become the great film it was trying to be. I heard that the inconsistencies within the film are also present in the stage play from which this was spawned, and that is a shame. If only a few areas were tightened up then this would be a masterpiece.
DVD Review: Meg Tilly is astounding as Agnes
Summary: 5 Stars
I admire the work of both Anne Bancroft and Jane Fonda in this film, but it's Meg Tilly, whose work I previously had seen only in The Big Chill, who steals this picture as the troubled innocent who is the central character of this drama of the clash between science and faith. Agnes' final speech, when she tells the story of the man who visited her over the course of several nights, still gives me chills. I'm sorry that Tilly hasn't had more roles.DVD Review: Agnes of God
Summary: 5 Stars
Norman Jewison's adaptation of the Broadway play makes for a gripping spiritual mystery, where no conventional solutions or answers materialize. The movie works as both whodunit and drama, as two strong women, one representing science, the other faith, go head-to-head to explain an unthinkable crime and determine the fate of the innocent at its center. All three leads make the most of what they're given, with the late Anne Bancroft and young Tilly particularly good. An involving, thought-provoking film from skilled veteran Jewison.DVD Review: Secrets and lies, faith and science
Summary: 5 Stars
I picked up this movie recently as I remembered seeing its poster in the theaters at the place where we used to go to see movies. My mom told me that was a movie for adults, so it always had some intregue for me. Now that I am an adult (ha ha ha), it holds just as many questions and just as much mystery.
Jane Fonda plays Dr. Livingston, a court appointed psychiatrist who has been called in to investigate a mysterious murder case. A young woman has given birth and apparently killed her baby soon after. The young woman was Sister Agnes, a novice at a French Canadian convent. She has no memory of the event, and the Mother Superior is bent on keeping others out. She and Dr. Livingston would clash several times. Dr. Livingston is the voice of reason, the realist, the one who is determined to find the answers and a perfectly reasonable explination for everything. Mother Superior is the one who has put her faith in God, trusting enough to leave some things alone to that of the whims of fate. And Agnes, sweet, innocent little Agnes is at the center of it all.
In the conversations Dr. Livinston has with Agnes, we find that she is innocent but hiding an abusive past. She doesn't understand many things about the world, and that she had been locked in this convent all her life she had no means in which to learn. Why would she? This is the place where she is finding happiness away from her abusive past. This is hard for Dr. Livingston to accept, why any young woman would want to be a nun and live this way. Dr. Livingston has her own problems, and perhaps she wants to atone for her own mistakes by finding and answer. We also find out that Mother Superior is not so innocent either. She did not become a nun until later in life, had once been married, and choose to leave the world that Dr. Livingston comes from. It is reveiled that Agnes is the Mother Superior's niece, and that she suspected that Agnes was pregnant to the point that she put a waste basket in her room for her to dispose of the child once it was born. Mother Superior also wants to protect Agnes and keep others out from disrupting their quest for spiritual realization. Naturally, there will be clashes.
And under hypnosis, we hear about the night Agnes's child was conceived. Per the instruction of a dying elderly nun, Sister Paul (who Agnes also said saw the mysterious man) tells her to go to the secret passage behind a statue of St. Michael in the basement. Agnes follows the passage and goes to the barn, where she would meet HIM. From there she cannot describe what happened. She says she saw him from her window in the field everynight and he sang a beautiful song to her, so she knew him. *Shudder*
What fascinated me the most about this movie was the fact that Agnes was a true innocent, and as one she really did not know where babies come from, and it calls upon your faith which you thought was long since dead. So who was the father? If you believe in science, it was a man. If you believe in faith, it was God. These are the only two answers possible. But, we will never know. But it just can't be, your rational side says to you. Yet, you hear Agnes's side of the story under hypnosis and you will always wonder, plus hearing her sing the song that her mysterious midnight visitor would sing to her. Even in this day and age, there are some that are truly blessed with the ability to communicate with the spiritual world. Agnes truly is of God.
Description of Agnes of God [Region 2]
This Broadway hit gets a solid film treatment by director Norman Jewison, but that can't make up for the weaknesses of the script (which were as true onstage as they are here). Jane Fonda plays a chain-smoking shrink sent to a convent to do a psychological evaluation of a novice (Meg Tilly) who gave birth to a baby and then killed it in her little room. Was it a virgin birth? A miracle? And what of the bloody stigmata that seem to spontaneously appear on her hands? Fonda also finds herself clashing with the Mother Superior (Anne Bancroft) over the line between faith and science. But writer John Pielmeier can't flesh this out beyond an idea; in the end, the solution is a disappointingly earthbound one that even the strong acting in this film can't elevate. --Marshall FineThrillers DVDs
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