Fluentiama Perfect cast and a good story

ClassyWas Excellent, smart action film.

FirstWitch A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Zandra The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

AaronCapenBanner Norman Jewison directed this drama about Sister Agnes(played by Meg Tilly) an innocent young woman living in a convent who inexplicably found herself pregnant, though the baby dies... Jane Fonda plays Dr. Martha Livingston, a court-appointed psychiatrist sent to investigate the matter, though ends up butting heads with the Mother Superior(played by Anne Bancroft) who has a most personal interest in protecting Agnes; the question still remains however: how did Agnes get pregnant, and who is the father? Meg Tilly is excellent, and outshines her two famous leads, whose characters start to grate after awhile. Though Agnes is a fascinating woman, the script brings up religious and philosophical questions it is clearly either unwilling or unable to answer, making this film ultimately unsatisfying, though Meg Tilly is radiant throughout.

Eumenides_0 Agnes of God opens with screams in a convent. As nuns rush to the room where the screams come from, the viewer is confronted with the scene of a novice nun, Sister Agnes (Meg Tilly), covered in blood; in a paper wastebasket next to her a dead newborn is found. The authorities want to know what happened, but Sister Agnes has blocked all memories from that night, so Dr. Martha Livingston (Jane Fonda), has the inglorious task of discovering the truth.Norman Jewison has made a name for himself tackling hot issues in his movies: cold war paranoia (The Russians Are Coming the Russians Are Coming), racism (In the Heat of the Night; A Soldier's Story), corruption in the legal system (… And Justice for All). In Agnes of God he portrays the touchy relationship between religion and secular authority. A murder probably occurred in the convent but, like a judge says, no one wants to send a nun to prison. They'll be content with declaring Agnes insane and temporarily locking her away in an institution. What makes Dr. Livingston's task so inglorious is that she's fighting alone, against the state and the church, to find the truth.Appointed by court to analyse Sister Agnes' state of mind, Dr. Livingston starts asking interesting questions that no one else cares about: who was the father? Did any of the nuns know about the pregnancy? Why was Sister Agnes' room the only one with a paper wastebasket? And, more importantly, was the death an accident or a premeditated murder? Opposing the investigation is Mother Miriam Ruth (Anne Bancroft), the head of the convent, a disillusioned woman looking for miracles in the modern world and who wants to believe that Sister Agnes' presumed virgin pregnancy is the work of God.The movie's main strength lies in the confrontation between these two great actresses. Although the narrative is weak at times, the screenplay fleshed out the characters very well, giving the viewer a lot of information about their past. We learn that Dr. Livingston had a Catholic upbringing but became an atheist after a traumatic experience in her childhood. She sees Sister Agnes as a victim that must be saved from a world that wants her to live in ignorance.Mother Miriam, who could easily have been portrayed as a sinister antagonist, since it's always easy to make religious figures in cinema evil or crazy, is one o the most compassionate character in the movie, wishing only to protect Sister Agnes from an outside world that only brought pain and misery to the young woman. Sister Agnes, with her devotion and piousness, also reminds Mother Miriam of a time when she still had faith and so becomes an ideal worth fighting for.Meg Tilly also stands out. Always dressed in white, in opposition to the black garments worn by other nuns, Sister Agnes, with her baby-like face, is a beacon of innocence and kindness. She loves everyone, knows nothing about the world outside the convent, and may be visited by angels. Most of her performance consists of just looking angelic. But when she starts talking about the baby her soft voice takes a sorrowful, angry tone that temporarily upstages the veteran actresses.It's a pity, however, that her most dramatic scenes come up while she's under hypnosis. That's one my few complaints about the movie. Hypnosis should always be used judiciously since it resolves things too easily. The screenplay could have been stronger – I have nothing to say about the dialogues, which are mesmerising, but the narrative could have had some tweaking.Also, those who watch this movie may not realise that it contains one of the best scores ever composed for cinema. Georges Delerue, who composed the music for Contempt, Day for Night, A Little Romance, Platoon and other classics, composed a score here that creates a relaxed feeling of harmony, perfect for meditation, and with beautiful church-like choral music – and it's hardly heard in the movie. It's a strange decision (and ironic since Delerue got his fifth Oscar nomination for it) because seldom have a score and movie complemented each other so well.Nevertheless, this character-driven mystery should satisfy anyone looking for some thought provoking ideas. Although Norman Jewison is not hailed as one of cinema's greatest, his ability to raise controversial topics and get unforgettable performances from his actors always makes his movies interesting to watch.

jzappa First off, Jane Fonda is a wonderful, riveting actress who packs a punch with every performance. In Agnes of God, she delivers on a very personal level, portraying a character very close to herself and bringing passion to the screen. She is also, in her early fifties, looking so loin-scorchingly beautiful that I could hardly restrain myself at times. Despite her wardrobe, depicting a woman who doesn't care to exhibit so loudly her heart-poundingly, blood-throbbingly luscious body, she magnetizes any heterosexual libido watching this film. Now that that's been made clear, I'll return to more practical comments upon this movie.Meg Tilly makes you wonder why her sister is more popular and still working these days. She is haunting as a nun who in mind and spirit is still a naive and innocent little girl, overloaded with imagination and shame for every presentation of any of the realities of being a woman. Each actress in the film matches the other, but only Tilly disturbs us and rocks our emotions.Anne Bancroft, in maybe her best performance short of The Graduate, is wonderful because of how realistic her character is, the sad woman whose present situation brings peace but does not hinder the edge she's developed from life. Her scenes with Fonda are riveting, despite the stage-like speed at which they exchange dialogue which hardly has the effect on screen as it would in the original play. The two actresses develop a swaying arch that lasts throughout the movie, as they meet, and no matter how much they disagree and fight, can still find that one moment in the gazebo where they can connect on a relatively comfortable level. They only hate each other because of what the other represents to the other's desperately fixed opinion, and if things were different, they could get along just like anyone else. I'm not sure if I've ever seen a relationship like that done so well and so clearly in a movie before. It's a rare and odd sort of occurrence and in life that isn't often recognized, and those two actresses performed it with the sharp perception that makes them two of the greatest actresses of the 1960s through the '80s.Agnes of God is directed by Norman Jewison with a sort of effect that films rarely live up to. I don't know if I would call it one of my favorite films, but I would call it a film that sets a perfect example of effective, atmospheric, emotional film-making. Jewison's use of director of photography Sven Nykvist, of Ingmar Bergman fame, gives the film the visual moods it has that Jewison subtly projects on us. Every prop, setting, and landscape is old, almost antique-like, and therein lies feeling and atmosphere. There's a sense of history that is never spoken of. Georges Delerue's music is so packed with weeping, heart-sinking emotion that because of it, tears will strain your eyes. The film is so subtle in its workings, especially on Jewison's handling of the cinematography and music. The music will slowly sneak into a scene and you will hardly notice it's entrance, and it will pack a scene with tension or passion or even fear in any combination of warmth, sneakiness, and atmosphere. The film entrances you because of these subtleties. Jewison will focus so deeply on one setting that it's an entire universe for us, and when a new scene takes place somewhere else, it's jolting. What a sad, powerful, atmospheric film. I cried so hard.

nycritic It's got to be something of an inconvenience for a young woman who's devoted her life to serve Him and she finds out that He's places a nasty little trick on her. That's the postulate that AGNES OF GOD, a thriller with a lot of religion and atheism thrown in for good tension, tries to present and pass off without a hitch. The main problem is, that could have been acceptable, had it not introduced a human element -- the possibility of a crime -- into the mix. The crime in question? A young nun's baby, dead under mysterious circumstances, the ensuing investigation which points at clues which seem to point at darker elements, the appearance of the non-believing psychiatrist, played by Jane Fonda who is determined to get to the root of the matter despite the protests of the Mother Superior, played by Anne Bancroft as a woman who abandoned her previous life of worldly pleasures for one of introspection. AGNES OF GOD benefits by these two actresses who play against and with each other grandly, but Meg Tilly's performance is somehow uneven and borders on thankless even when she is the nun caught in the middle of this crux (pun intended). I can't say I was satisfied with the way it wrapped up its mystical dilemma, but there it is, existing, daring you to watch it and make up your own conclusions as to what is valid under the aegis of the Maker.