The Catholic church needs another black-eye right now about as much as Michael Jackson needs a job driving an Ice Cream truck. But here it is - in it's cruel and unusual technicolor, a film based upon the true story of the Irish laundry houses. In the 60's while many of the women of the world were revelling in a sexual revolution and gaining equality at least in some measure, the Irish Catholic Church had it's own way of dealing with young girls of such wanton desires. You could be locked up in one of these ungodly nunneries for pretty much anything from flirting with a boy, to giving birth out of wedlock, to mental instability to being a victim of incest.

All that was needed to be locked away indefinitely in one of these chain-store laundry hell-holes was the consent of a parent or legal guardian. The movie starts off as three young girls (Dorothy Duffy, Nora-Jane Noone, and Anne-Marie Duff) enter one of these Magdalene facilities, one for each of the offenses mentioned above (except) mental illness, and thus we are introduced to the unfathomable cruelty that these women and girls are subjected to in the name of religion, piety and of course the almighty dollar.

Each day was the same. Awaken at 6, have a prayer, eat breakfast and then work in an old fashion laundry all day. Talking amongst one another was forbidden and after dinner, you were off to bed in a communal dormitory with thirty other unfortunates. If these girls wanted to experience any Christian charity or mercy that had to show it to one another as the Nuns are all painted as sadistic nutjobs, just looking for an excuse to administer a beating or the other kinds of punishment and humiliation we would soon learn of and witness.

My first reaction to this business, was that it was probably a bit of a harsh and unfair indictment of these nuns, but these Magdalene asylums were widespread and the stories true and perhaps the most shocking statistic is the last of these fascist facilities was shut down in 1996. And the figures they quote speak of 30,000 women who were made to spend large portions of their lives in fear and captivity. The rationale behind these institutions is the worst kind of misinterpretation and exploitation of religion - as these women were repeatedly inculcated with the mantra that their punishment would eventually wash away their iniquity and eventually make them worthy in the eyes of God. In the mean time many of these women spent their entire lives in such brutal servitude.

The film itself is well shot and cast. Sister Bridget (a wicked Geraldine McEwen, would makes Nurse Ratched look like Mother Theresa and there is a wonderful performance by aasdlfj ;lsdkfj as a simpleton of a girl who has a young boy whom her sister would bring to the fence so that they could share a glance from time to time. Her character is the most moving and ultimately her fate is the most heart-wrenching part of the film.

It was a hard movie to watch and I got through it by trying to focus on the relationships forged between the girls of these sweatshops. Any charity and kindness they would find in these institutions had to come from each other. I guess it is a fact that some of these girls were made to suffer humiliation much like fraternity hazing and there is a scene where they are forced to stand naked before two nuns who poke fun at each girl for their physical imperfections - I could have lived without this scene, and I was glad they didn't explore it in any further detail.

Again, my inclination would be to call this scathing indictment excessive, but the more I find out about these Magdalene houses the more I realize that this film was factually fair and probably only scratched the surface of the inhumane suffering that these innocent women were made to undergo. Yet the part of the film I admired was the pluck of those women, who despite their ungodly circumstances stood strong, looked after one another and triumphed over their captives by demonstrating Christ's true nature to these twisted nuns who had long since forgotten the lessons of Christ's ministry.