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Agnes of God (1985)

Rate: 5
Viewed: 2/20

AgnesG
2/20: Shot primarily on Canadian locations of Berthierville and Montreal, Agnes of God reconfirms why I'm an atheist and how little I think of any organized religion.

What we have here is an unbelievably dumb girl who killed her baby and got away with it, thanks to Canada's notoriously lenient criminal justice system (see Karla Homolka). Who cares if she's a nun? It shouldn't be a factor.

Trying to figure out the identity of the deceased baby's father is a pointless exercise. My chief complaint is it took so long to get to the truth after enduring a great deal of babble from all sides. More sickening is that these nuns do nothing all day when they should get a job and live in the real world.

Fancily dressed with furs, Jane Fonda is the worst. For an aerobic fitness champ, she has to chain-smoke throughout the film. She's also a fraud for playing a psychiatrist whose methods are so unethical that place her client in psychological danger more often than not. At the same time, she makes the mistake of letting Mother Miriam Ruth (Anne Bancroft) take control of the situation when she should've banished her from the room. The psychiatrist that Richard Burton played in Equus would've handled Agnes (Meg Tilly) better with satisfactory results.

The mother superior's behavior is typical. She isn't dumb but is obviously brainwashed, preferring to protect the church at all costs by believing in what she wants despite the mounting evidence against her. And forget Agnes...she's hopeless and stupid beyond repair. Neither Anne Bancroft nor Meg Tilly should've received an Oscar nomination for their performances.

All in all, a bad imitation of Equus, Agnes of God is manipulative and wastes too much time when it's been clear that Agnes was the murderer from the get-go.