Agnes of God

Directed by Norman Jewison, Agnes of God follows Jane Fonda’s Martha Livingston, a court-appointed psychiatrist, as she’s tasked with looking into an infant’s death within the walls of a secluded convent. Filmmaker Jewison, working from John Pielmeier’s screenplay, delivers an excessively deliberate endeavor that is, for the most part, unable to wholeheartedly capture the viewer’s interest and attention, with the arms-length vibe perpetuated by a narrative that emphasizes, to an increasingly egregious extent, Martha’s tedious investigation and continuing conversations with said convent’s head honcho (Anne Bancroft’s Miriam Ruth). It goes without saying, then, that Agnes of God is rarely, if ever, able to become the searing drama that Jewison has clearly intended, although, by that same token, there’s little doubt that the uniformly stellar performances go a long way towards ensuring that the picture is, at the very least, generally watchable – with Fonda and Bancroft’s predictably stirring work, from time to time, transforming their scenes together into a welcome respite from the otherwise tedious atmosphere. The comparatively eventful and revelation-heavy final stretch, in the end, arrives much too late to make any real difference in the movie’s overall impact, which ultimately does cement Agnes of God‘s place as a mostly underwhelming and uninvolving drama from Jewison.

** out of ****