Product Details

• Actors: Jane Fonda, Anne Bancroft, Meg Tilly, Anne Pitoniak, Winston Rekert
• Directors: Norman Jewison
• Writers: John Pielmeier
• Producers: Norman Jewison, Bonnie Palef, Charles Milhaupt, Patrick J. Palmer
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, HiFi Sound, NTSC
• Language: English, French
• Rated: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Sony Pictures
• VHS Release Date: January 30, 1996
• Run Time: 98 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6302860326
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #257,861 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

This Broadway hit gets a solid film treatment by director Norman Jewison, but that can't make up for the weaknesses of the script (which were as true onstage as they are here). Jane Fonda plays a chain-smoking shrink sent to a convent to do a psychological evaluation of a novice (Meg Tilly) who gave birth to a baby and then killed it in her little room. Was it a virgin birth? A miracle? And what of the bloody stigmata that seem to spontaneously appear on her hands? Fonda also finds herself clashing with the Mother Superior (Anne Bancroft) over the line between faith and science. But writer John Pielmeier can't flesh this out beyond an idea; in the end, the solution is a disappointingly earthbound one that even the strong acting in this film can't elevate. --Marshall Fine

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent film about a young nun who gets pregnant, July 12, 2002

By 

Stephen M. Bauer (Hazlet, NJ United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Agnes of God (DVD)

Agnes of God has a very tight script, plot and cinematography. It is gripping from end to end. The film is not about religion but about the inter-personal and intra-personal conflicts of a psychiatrist, the mother superior of a community of nuns and one of her young nuns.

Set in Montreal, the movie opens with a very young, pretty nun being discovered unconscious and splattered with a lot of blood. A dead newborn baby is also discovered in the room.

Presumably, unknown to anyone, the nun, Sister Agnes (Meg Tilly), had been pregnant, and she strangled the baby immediately upon its birth. She is charged with manslaughter.

A psychiatrist, Dr. Martha Livingston (Jane Fonda), is summoned by the court to make a diagnosis of the woman. Initially Dr. Livingston resisted the assignment, because she said, it was an open and shut case. The community of nuns is cloistered, and for Dr. Livingston to do her job, she must penetrate the world of the cloister. She is not at all congenial or sympathetic towards the nuns. It turns out she has her own emotional ax to flail against the church.

Mother Miriam Ruth (Anne Bankcroft), the mother superior of the convent, is equally hostile to Dr. Livingston. She is adamantly opposed to having a psychiatrist diagnose Sister Agnes, but she has no choice since it is a legal matter. She is faced with the dilemma of sending her young charge go to jail or the nuthouse. Later on, it comes out that the prioress has been keeping a few secrets of her own related to the issue.

Everyone denies knowing the girl was pregnant. No one has any idea how it happened. Its obvious the postulate/novice is suffering from a serious psychiatric illness, or several. She has the social and emotional development of a naïve grade school child.

The few surprises and plot twists are well spaced and more than enough to keep the plot flowing. I found all of the characters and action credible. The three main characters are all multi-dimensional. The Mother Superior is well rounded, a mature person and leader, full of flaws and dragging a lifetime of baggage. Sister Agnes is the epitome of innocence and purity. She comes across as truly otherworldly. Her singing symbolizes both. I was a little disappointed in Dr. Livingston. Considering she was a psychiatrist, I thought she was a too lacking in self-knowledge. Her chain smoking was both annoying and symbolic.

Dr. Livingston's assigned task is diagnosing Sister Agnes only, not cure her, but Dr. Livingston quickly channels her anger into passionately trying to help her. She succeeds as a psychiatrist and as a human being.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A collsion of science with faith, February 13, 2003

By 

Christopher M. MacNeil "Chris M" (Fort Wayne, IN USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Agnes of God [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Director Norman Jewison adapted the Broadway play of the same name with an A list of performers who, despite their individual and combined magnificent talents, can't quite salvage what might be to some a disappointing resolution. Still, getting there is a provocative odyssey in defining the fine line between divine faith and science. In a usually engaging performance, Jane Fonda is a chain-smoking psychiatrist in a French-speaking Canadian territory and is appointed by the Crown to evaluate the mental stability of a novice nun, Agnes (brilliantly played by Meg Tilley in an Oscar-nominated supporting role) who gives birth and then kills her newborn in her blood-spattered convent room. Soon, with Agnes proclaiming Immaculate Conception and virgin birth, the film's premise of faith vs. science vs. rape is laid. All too soon, Fonda clashes with the protective but domineering Mother Superior (Ann Bancroft, also in an Oscar-nominated turn). With the Crown dubious about Agnes' version of how she got pregnant, it nonetheless wants the case quickly adjudicated so as not to create a battered public image associated with prosecuting a nun. Along the way, we learn that the strain between Fonda and Bancroft is the former's rejection of the Catholic faith stems from the former's bad experience with a sister during childhood. Still, the focus is on the extent of human faith and its sometimes incompatibility with science. All three actress - Fonda, Bancroft and Tilley - are captivating in their adverse positions with each other in the argument of Science vs. God. The film's resolution is consistent with contemporary dogma and leaves us somewhat puzzled but more disturbed by its hint that faith may not be enough to salvage ourselves. Then again, maybe there's not supposed to be a happily-ever-after or comfortable absolution: after all, even with the strongest of faith, not everything ends happily ever after. Nonetheless, "Agnes of God" remains a tantilizing film that entices its viewers to question and reaffirm their faith and whether it can survive the invasion of skepticism that comes in the name op science. Beyond that, as an entertainment piece, "Anges of God" is a showpiece for its three lead characters, and watching them finding the answer none of them wants is a worthy watch.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One my all-time favorites, September 10, 1999

By 

N. Abbott (Atlanta, GA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Agnes of God [VHS] (VHS Tape)

There is something about the sweetness and innocence with which Meg Tilly plays the part of Agnes that attracts me to this movie time and time again. Perhaps it's the longing for some of the innocence and naivety that she portrays in Agnes. I think Jane Fonda's portrayal of Livingston is just wonderful. She manages to play a tough, atheistic psychiatrist with such gusto, yet she still appears very human and vulnerable.

I recommend this movie highly, especially to people who have struggled with the paradoxes involved in the conflict between faith and science.