Rent The Magdalene Sisters (2002)

Power Corrupts. - The Magdalene Sisters review by Steve

Set in 1964, this is a heartbreaking exposé of the real life abuse suffered by mostly very young women in the custody of the Catholic church in Ireland, who were deemed to have transgressed often in ill defined ways, and then disappeared into convent workhouses run as money making laundries.

The story focuses on the teenagers who are victims of rape, or had babies outside marriage. In one case a young woman who is sexually assaulted by a priest is kept silent by her incarceration in a mental asylum... where she soon died. The only possible response is to be utterly horrified.

So this cannot be evaluated as entertainment; director Peter Mullan made it because none of the survivors ever received any official acknowledgement. And some never left the laundries alive. It's social realism with fine ensemble performances. Geraldine McEwan is terrifying as the mother superior.

These institutions were not closed due to moral outrage, but because they ceased to be profitable. This is a reminder of the exploitation often visited on the poor and the vulnerable, even by those responsible for their care. If there was a hell, I expect these sisters of mercy would be welcome there.