Laura Linney is upstaged by older co-stars Smith and Kathy Bates in this sentimental tale about a group of Dublin women who go on a spiritual journey together
Who’s up for a golden-hued heartwarmer set in 60s Ireland starring Kathy Bates and Maggie Smith about women with secret fears and dreams going on a church trip to Lourdes and finally finding the real miracle is their new compassion for each other? The answer to this question could well have been … me. I have a liking for a gentle tale and there is nothing necessarily wrong with, just occasionally, showing Ireland and the church of this period with something other than outrage and horror. But The Miracle Club does not at any time, to use a discredited metaphor, throw away its crutches and walk. And it’s painful to note that this is largely because of the way film can...
Who’s up for a golden-hued heartwarmer set in 60s Ireland starring Kathy Bates and Maggie Smith about women with secret fears and dreams going on a church trip to Lourdes and finally finding the real miracle is their new compassion for each other? The answer to this question could well have been … me. I have a liking for a gentle tale and there is nothing necessarily wrong with, just occasionally, showing Ireland and the church of this period with something other than outrage and horror. But The Miracle Club does not at any time, to use a discredited metaphor, throw away its crutches and walk. And it’s painful to note that this is largely because of the way film can...
- 10/10/2023
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
On paper, Thaddeus O’Sullivan’s “The Miracle Club” seems like it should be a backboard-shattering slam-dunk for the sort of people whose favorite movies all share the words “and Maggie Smith” in their opening credits, but this trite Irish trifle about a girls trip to Lourdes is so chalky and underbaked that its all-star cast (Laura Linney! Kathy Bates! Stephen Rea!) is left no choice but to chew on the scenery. That’s a glaring problem in a film whose marquee location is so crudely green-screened behind the actors that the Grotto of the Apparitions feels like a leftover backdrop from “Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.”
Occasionally sweet despite its general flavorlessness, “The Miracle Club” may have its heart in the right place, but it beats for nothing in a 1967-set period piece that grows faint at the sight of its own blood, let alone in a film...
Occasionally sweet despite its general flavorlessness, “The Miracle Club” may have its heart in the right place, but it beats for nothing in a 1967-set period piece that grows faint at the sight of its own blood, let alone in a film...
- 7/11/2023
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
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