Novi­tiate – first look review

“I want an ide­al love that I can give every­thing to.” So speaks lumi­nous­ly beau­ti­ful teen pos­tu­lant, Cath­leen (Mar­garet Qual­ley, Andie MacDowall’s daugh­ter). It’s the 1960s and, after an edu­ca­tion at Catholic School, she has decid­ed to step up her com­mit­ment to God by enter­ing a con­vent. Her moth­er, who only sent her to Catholic school because it was free, is open­ly dis­tressed (“What did I do wrong?!”).

Although Novi­tiate fits the bill of a reli­gious dra­ma, it’s also framed as a romance in which the beloved is God. He is hard work. He won’t give a sin­gle sign that feel­ings are rec­i­p­ro­cat­ed. Tru­ly, the almighty is the most pun­ish­ing of love inter­ests. The film is at its most sly­ly enter­tain­ing when Cath­leen, and her class of nubile wannabe nuns, dis­cuss faith in the breathy whis­pers of the enamoured.

This deliv­ery gives a sliv­er of intrigue to the tem­po, which is oth­er­wise ele­gant­ly for­mal. Mir­ror­ing the life that Cath­leen desires, the film unfolds qui­et­ly and with order. Betts builds a thor­ough pic­ture, event by event, exchange by exchange. Nar­ra­tive­ly speak­ing, there are no cli­max­es, no anti-cli­max­es, just a method­i­cal com­mit­ment to estab­lish­ing the con­text of one big ques­tion: can a woman live with­out phys­i­cal love?

Sex­u­al urges come intrud­ing, like they do; fed organ­i­cal­ly into the rhythm of a life defined by prayer, train­ing, being mor­ti­fied by the Rev­erend Moth­er (Melis­sa Leo) and bond­ing between the pos­tu­lants. Betts drums up a frag­ile cama­raderie between her cast of pre­pos­ter­ous­ly attrac­tive young sis­ters. Snip­pets of life sto­ries are exchanged. An alter­na­tive ref­er­ence point for for love is born. It may not be as pure, but its meati­ness car­ries weight in a set­ting built upon invis­i­ble wrestling of the spir­it. Betts deliv­ers not one but two extend­ed mas­tur­ba­tion sequences, keep­ing the cam­era on dewy young faces in a state of nat­ur­al aban­don­ment. ​‘How is this wrong?’ is the implied subtext.

Sub­ver­sions are inter­twined around a plot­line which gives vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty to the Rev­erend Moth­er, a fear­some dis­ci­pli­nar­i­an. Every­thing she holds dear is threat­ened by the soon-to-be-imple­ment­ed Vat­i­can II. Hav­ing built her con­vic­tions upon tra­di­tion, she has no capac­i­ty to under­stand progress. She acts as an arche­typ­al force for reli­gious per­fec­tion­ism. As a Bride of Christ, the imple­men­ta­tion of her stan­dards is worth inflict­ing dis­tress on her weep­ing underlings.

Qual­ley is a poised pres­ence, drink­ing in the world and reflect­ing through voiceover. What even­tu­al­ly caus­es her calm to crum­ble is a des­per­ate desire for the com­forts of the flesh. By pre­sent­ing sex as a source of human­i­ty, Betts locates mer­cy as some­thing that takes place on the ground, in the cor­rupt­ed world, way beneath God.