Agnes of God

The movie contains Jane Fonda's first big-screen appearance since On Golden Pond (1981); if she doesn't quite find a character in Martha, she is nonetheless riveting. Anne Bancroft, too, is impressive. Finally, though, it is Meg Tilly who makes the movie live. Her performance, which works on both realistic and symbolic levels, allows you to believe in the story. Read full review

Agnes of God may not seem half so profound on the screen as it did on stage, but if that is the case, it is so because Jewison's direction illuminates rather than conceals the story's essence. And this Agnes is not just a filmed play; it's a real movie, and a fine piece of work. [27 Sept 1985, p.D1]

Though the plot has some annoying holes, the dialogue and the performances are excellent. Read full review

It is such a rare pleasure to watch three superior actresses practicing their art that the filmgoer almost forgives "Agnes of God" for its imperfections. Almost. [7 Oct 1985]

Splendidly shot by Sven Nykvist and with excellent performances, it's an agreeable puzzle which doesn't, thank heaven, come up with a solution to the meaning of life. Read full review

To Norman Jewison's credit, the film of Agnes of God releases some of the hot air and gets right down to melodramatic business. Opened up and streamlined by Pielmeier, reset in wintry Quebec and cleanly shot by Sven Nykvist, the movie is a respectably engrossing detective story in theological garb (and not unlike Jewison's 1984 "A Soldier's Story" in form). [9 Sept 1985, p.89]

The rich visuals seem at odds with the spartan content of the screenplay, with skating nuns like penguins on a frozen pond, cows lowing, pigeons flapping, statues weeping, novices in white gowns splayed like crucifixes on the stone cold floor. We're left with these images when we should be left pondering the cosmos, shortchanged by the saints and the scientists alike, denied our just epiphany. [27 Sept 1985, p.25]

What`s lacking is a clear conception on Jewison`s part as to what this film is about. Read full review

Fonda’s relentless interrogating, mannered chain-smoking and enforced two dimensionality cause her to become tiresome very early on. She remains a brittle cliche of a modern professional woman. Bancroft gives a generally highly engaging performance as a religious woman too knowledgeable to be one-upped by even the craftiest layman. Read full review

The material itself, thoroughly unsurprising on the stage, is if anything even more so on the screen. Read full review

Agnes of God offers little besides its jury-rigged suspense. Oh, there are oodles of cigarette jokes -- Livingston is a chain smoker, Mother Miriam a reformed one -- till you wonder why the acknowledgment to Benson & Hedges in the closing credits didn't come above the title. Read full review

Tedious and contrived. Read full review

Despite all the anguished huffing and puffing, there isn't a single authentic moment in it, and all you're left with in the end is the fading memory of two overscaled, Oscar-bait performances. Read full review

It considers, or pretends to consider, some of the most basic questions of human morality and treats them on the level of "Nancy Drew and the Secret of the Old Convent." Read full review