PAULINE ÉTIENNE, LEFT, AND ISABELLE HUPPERT, CENTER, IN THE NUN

Still not a sister

The Nun is an attention-getting but ultimately disappointing adaptation of Denis Diderot's once highly controversial eighteenth-century novel. Diderot was attacking corruption in the Church, but the director, Guillaume Nicloux, whose decades of workmanlike films haven't gained him auteur status, decided that "personal freedom" should be his handle on the material. The resulting beautiful-to-look-at and well staged but conventional movie plods. Worse, its grip on tone falters constantly. It begins promisingly as a coming of age revelation full of anguish, showing its young protagonist Suzanne's confinement in a nunnery against her will. At a dramatic high point that at the same time feels somehow blank and empty because of a lack of psychological penetration, Susanne surprises even herself by refusing to take the vows right during the ceremony. There's more beauty in the wonderful costumes, the conventional but dramatic symmetrical framing of the images, and the ecclesiastical sound effects, than there is conviction, but the story is still ripe with possibility. Things go downhill however as we are forced to slog through a long period of physical and psychological torture after Suzanne is told she's illegitimate and is sent back to the nunnery, the nice but dishonest head nun dies, and a totally sadistic one focuses on destroying her. Finally when she's rescued from this horror there's a second complete tonal shift to squirmy comedy when Suzanne, who now has an outside advocate, is transferred to another nunnery whose mother superior (Isabelle Huppert) is a rampant lesbian absurdly eager to bed her. A somewhat ambiguous happy ending is tacked on. Boyd von Hoeij of Variety, reivewing The Nun at its Berlin debut, quipped that if it were not for the "luminous" face of the Belgian actress Pauline Etienne in the starring role, the whole film would be "a snoozefest of epic proportions." And maybe it is anyway. Von Hoeij also pointed out that there is a "perfectly fine" adaptation of the Diderot novel by Jacques Rivette from 1966 starring Anna Karina, though the real problem is Nicloux's inability to imbue his film with tension, drive, and momentum. Forget this distractingly pretty but vapid effort and watch instead Cristian Mungiu's related but far more intense and real contemporary story, Beyond the Hills (NYFF 2012).

Jordan Mintzer's Hollywood Reporter review noted that The Nunhas nothing "inspiring or truly groundbreaking" but is "a well-hendled package" in which "strong performances" are "abetted" by "superb technical contributions," especially the visual work of Bruno Dumont's frequent dp Yves Cape. Well, there is another recommendation: instead of this series of empty pageants watch Bruno Dumont's remarkably inward-looking study of religious obsession (turning to political extremism), Hadewijch (NYFF 2009).

The Nun/La religieuse, 114 mins., was screened for this review March 1, 2013 at IFC Center as part of the Rendez-Vous with French Cinema, a series put on (in its 18th year, this year Feb. 28-Mar. 10, 2013) by Unifrance and the Film Soceity of Lincoln Center. The film opens in Paris March 20, 2013.

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©Chris Knipp. Blog: http://chrisknipp.blogspot.com/.