The Miracle Club tugs heartstrings with moving performances

Movie opens on July 14 at theaters nationwide

Actress Laura Linney (left) stars with the legendary Dame Maggie Smith (right) in the film The Miracle Club, which centers around four women’s trip to Lourdes, France. (Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures)

By Ann Margaret Lewis

I’m always a sucker for a watching Dame Maggie Smith (Downton Abbey, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, California Suite) in anything she does, so I couldn’t resist the opportunity to review Sony Pictures’ film The Miracle Club, a story set in 1967 about four Irish-born women making a trip to Lourdes, France, in search of miracles.

As I predicted, Maggie made me cry. Her performance and those of Kathy Bates (Misery, Fried Green Tomatoes, About Schmidt), Agnes O’Casey (BBC One’s “Ridley Road”) and Laura Linney (You Can Count on Me, The Squid and the Whale, HBO’s “John Adams”) are all well done.

One could almost think of this film as an Irish version of Steel Magnolias (1989) with all the female actors chewing the scenery. One character faces the threat of terminal illness, while another desires to have her autistic son speak.

But in contrast with the joy of the pilgrimage is tension from the unwelcome return of a friend banished from their Irish community 40 years prior for an out-of-wedlock pregnancy. She joins the women in place of her deceased mother.

Of course, as with just about any secular production about Catholic characters, the film predictably approaches the subject of abortion. Since this is one of the core turns of the story, the subject couldn’t be avoided. But still, I find myself wishing secular filmmakers would tell a story about Catholics that didn’t hit on that topic, or at least approach it through a truly Catholic lens. Here the morality of it is left nebulous, which, again, is unsurprising.

I was also disappointed, but again not surprised, that none of the characters suggested or approached the sacrament of penance with the priest on the trip.

Regardless, he was portrayed sympathetically, being visibly crushed when one of the characters declares Lourdes a “con” because only 67 miracles had occurred there since Mary appeared there in 1858. To be honest, I found that amusing because my thought was, “Sixty-seven? That’s a lot!” (Lourdes is now up to 70.) Of course, the character who says this ends up with a miracle of her own she hadn’t anticipated, proving her wrong in her doubts about the pilgrimage.

Ultimately, the film is a pleasant tear-jerker that I was glad to watch for the fine performances if nothing else.

The film is rated PG-13 for language and adult subject matter. Directed by award-winning Irish filmmaker Thaddeus O’Sullivan, The Miracle Club is based on a story by Jimmy Smallhorne, with a screenplay by Smallhorne, Timothy Prager and Joshua D. Maurer. The film is beautifully shot at locations in Ireland, while the Lourdes grotto was recreated at Ireland’s Ardmore Film Factory. The Lourdes shrine rarely grants permission for filming.

The Miracle Club is releasing in theaters nationwide on July 14. To see if the film will show at a theater near you or to purchase tickets, go to tickets.miracleclubmovie.com. †