In the mid-19th century, the widely popular "expose" book, "The Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk," which portrayed Catholic convents as places of torture and debauchery, helped fuel anti-Catholic bigotry. Although "Novitiate" doesn't completely fall into blatant Catholic bashing, its portrayal of its convent as a place of misery does make it seem like Maria Monk-lite.
"Novitiate" attempts to be a 21st century version of Fred Zinnemann's fantastic 1959 film "The Nun's Story" which was about a Belgian nun's (Audrey Hepburn) struggles with her faith, profession as a nurse, and conflicting loyalties during WW2. "Novitiate" was so inspired by "The Nun's Story" that it has one of its characters make a direct reference to it.
"Novitiate" is the story of "Cathleen Harris" (Margaret Qualley) the only child of a broken home being raised by her mother (Julianne Nicholson). Although not Catholic and being raised in a de facto agnostic household, shy Cathleen "falls in love" with God after being inspired by the devotion of one of her kindly nun teachers at the parochial school she attends on scholarship. At age 17 and against her mother's objections, she joins a cloistered convent with the intention of making it her life.
However, it's 1964 and the Vatican II Council is under way with its intention of drawing Catholicism into the 20th century. That doesn't sit well with the convent's ultra-conservative Mother Superior (Melissa Leo). She's quite content with her Order's medieval traditions of public confessional debasement and self-inflicted scourging by the penitent. (Yeah, it's laid on a bit thick.)
Most of the movie is about how Cathleen and her fellow rose-cheeked novitiates struggle with both their faith and convent's strict rules especially its enforced silences. Cathleen appears to adapt better than most, but then "Sister Emanuel" (Rebecca Dayan) joins the convent and that's where the movie really lost me.
As stated above, the movie makes reference to "The Nun's Story" in which a novitiate admits that film was her inspiration to become a nun despite it being "unrealistic" because Audrey Hepburn was so beautiful. Unrealistic? In "Novitiate," most of the nuns range from very pretty to downright gorgeous! Also, this convent appears to have come stocked with a full make-up department because all the young sisters are always glammed-up!
Yet, it really gets dumb with Sister Emanuel's entrance. Once Cathleen takes a few quick glances at the beautiful Emanuel (Ms. Dayan has former model written all over her) she suddenly decides that she belongs to the Pink Team. Her instant transformation from devout novitiate to starving (literally) for lesbian intimacy was just ridiculous. How dumb is it? Well, it reminded me of those 1990's straight-to-video "erotic thrillers" in which if two attractive women were alone in a room together then they wouldn't be able to keep their hands off each other. At least, those "erotic thrillers" usually had a few lines of dialogue to try to explain why two women became instantaneous lesbian lovers, but "Novitiate" doesn't even have that to explain why Cathleen and Emanuel are suddenly groping and giving each other passionate kisses. The only explanation is that Ms. Qualley and Ms. Dayan are both extremely attractive and the producers clearly thought it'd be "hot" to watch them "get it on." It's so blatantly prurient that it is insulting.
Undoubtedly, the film-makers deluded themselves that they were making serious points as to the sexual tensions that had to exist in Catholic convents because after all everyone is obsessed with sex, right? So, we get scenes of sisters being unable to "master their domain" and the "nuns-gone-wild" stuff between Cathleen and Emanuel. It pretty much undercuts everything else including the Vatican II conflicts, Ms. Leo's and Ms. Nicholson's performances, and the shallow conversations as to faith.
In sum: a stupid, prurient film with pretensions as to seriousness, depth and art.
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