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Nun (The)

Country: France, Language: French, 114 mins

Original Title

La Religieuse
  • Director: Guillaume Nicloux
  • Writer: Denis Diderot; Guillaume Nicloux
  • Producer: M. Reza Bahar; Jacques-Henri Bronckart

CGiii Comment

AKA...out of the frying pan and - head first - into the fire...of eternal damnation.

Jeezuz H. Christ...these nuns are toxic. It's a hotbed for hellish behaviour and a home to nut-jobs!

The film is - bizarrely - in two distinct halves. There's the serious and then there's the camp...albeit an unintentional camp...but, Isabelle Huppert's performance as the licentious, lesbian predator takes the communion wafer and devours it ravenously.

So...all the salient comment on religious coercion- in the first half - is undone by the comedic capers in the second. Guillaume Nicloux is to blame...a director who lost control.

Such a shame, Pauline Etienne gives a mesmerising performance in what could have been a crucifying exhibition of devout religiosity.

Sadly, it will be remembered for all the silly bits.


Trailer...

The(ir) Blurb...

France, in the 1760s. Born to a bourgeois family, Suzanne (Pauline Etienne) is a beautiful young girl with a natural talent for music. Despite her faith, she is dismayed when her parents send her off to a convent, expecting her to become a nun. Suzanne first resists the rules of the convent, but soon finds out that she is an illegitimate child, leaving her no other option than to pronounce her vows and suffer the consequences of her mother's sin. She soon wants to escape the religious path and is trying to revoke her vows when the Mother Superior, who had brought her comfort and solace, dies. Her successor, Sister Christine (Louise Bourgoin), turns out to be a sadistic and cruel Mother Superior, inflicting the worst forms of humiliation upon Suzanne, such as depriving her of food and clothing. Suzanne is finally transferred to another convent, where she discovers another kind of Mother Superior (Isabelle Huppert), who develops an inappropriate affectionate bond with her...

Cast & Characters

Pauline Etienne as Suzanne Simonin;
Isabelle Huppert as Superieure Saint-Eutrope;
Louise Bourgoin as Superieure Christine;
Martina Gedeck as Madame Simonin, mere de Suzanne;
Francoise Lebrun as Madame de Moni;
Agathe Bonitzer as Soeur Therese;
Alice de Lencquesaing as Soeur Ursule;
Gilles Cohen as Pere de Suzanne;
Marc Barbe as Pere Castella;
Francois Negret as Maitre Manouri