Testy times with Laura Linney and Maggie Smith in The Miracle Club. Photo / Supplied
Testy times with Laura Linney and Maggie Smith in The Miracle Club. Photo / Supplied
The Miracle Club is one of those unchallenging but warm-hearted films relying on the performances of its big names to bring the magic.
It’s a fairly formulaic tale of put-upon 1960s housewives who leave their muttering husbands at home to make a pilgrimage from the suburbs of Dublin to thehallowed promises of Lourdes.
Eileen and Lily (Kathy Bates and Maggie Smith, both with decent Irish accents) are fulfilling the wish of a dearly departed friend, whose daughter (the excellent Laura Linney) flies in from America. She gets a frigid welcome from the community she left 40 years prior. It’ll take a miracle for these women to forgive old trespasses and pave new paths, but even with its predictable plot, The Miracle Club has some unexpectedly moving moments.
We see this when Smith and Linney spar, as elderly Lily, the embittered best friend of Chrissie’s dead mother, is forced to share a hotel room with the cool American returnee. With credit to the deft script, the reasons for Chrissie’s under-a-cloud departure are eked out gradually, and Linney is superb as the fish out of water who’s swimming against an unforgiving current.
Despite some stereotypical characters, it’s the committed acting that elevates each scene, including support from a surly Stephen Rea as Eileen’s gruffly unappreciative husband, and doe-eyed newcomer Agnes O’Casey as mum Dolly who’s desperate to cure her mute son.
Ultimately less about spiritual magic, The Miracle Club is a poignant lesson on forgiveness and grace.
Rating out of 5: ★★★
The Miracle Club directed by Thaddeus O’Sullivan is in cinemas now.
