Novitiate
2017 · Directed by Margaret Betts
Original language: English
- drama
The story
In the early 1960s, during the Vatican II era, a young woman training to become a nun struggles with issues of faith, sexuality and the changing church.
What it’s like
Cold, muted interiors and hard daylight through plain glass give Novitiate its look: long static takes of stone corridors, refectory tables and bare cells, with the camera holding still while faces tighten around the frame. The palette is greyed-out black and white-adjacent wool, pale linen and dull candlelight, with the occasional flash of warmth from sunlight on a wall. Sound is mostly what the building makes: footsteps on wood, rosary beads, chanted psalms, a radio carrying news from outside, all set against a near-silent score. The vibe is austere and quietly oppressive, with a slow, watchful rhythm and a dread that builds through discipline rather than through any single event. Its emotional register is restrained and rigorous; the central arc follows a young woman's crisis of faith and desire as the institution around her begins to shift, and the film stays close to her confusion without offering easy release. Intensity is low-to-moderate: there is some corporal punishment and harsh emotional cruelty from authority figures, but no gore, and the sexual content is implied and tender rather than explicit. It suits a grey afternoon or a late, reflective evening, and it is for viewers who want serious, unsentimental drama about belief, repression and coming of age.
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