best movie i've ever seen.

A Masterpiece!

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

I am a Catholic Dominican Sister and I watched this film with a mixture of horror and humor, thinking that yet again, a film, even in 2018, has depicted Catholic religious women as totally crazy in oh so many ways. My Sisters watched it and kept interrupting it with questions - "so-they make vows to become novices???? After six months?? And then, perpetual vows at the end of a year and a half of the novitiate? So, Cathleen is 19 and making a life commitment? You have got to be kidding me!!" I was a postulant for one year, a novice (white veil, no vows) for one year- then temporary vows for at least five years, then vowed for life. I was 30. No wonder these kids aren't sure - they are still teenagers!!! No one broke mirrors, no one made us crawl in shame, no one would laugh at a sister with dementia - where do they get this stuff???? Reverend Mother's House of Horrors - was there absolutely no one happy in that Convent - except for the Novice Director, who, of course, left. And no one to replace her to help these young women????And all of those Sisters left because of Vatican II? It had to be no more than a month, at most. They all jumped ship rather quickly! And they left because of Reverend Mother's three minute brutal summary of Vatican II, which actually lasted five years and produced volumes of documents. We studied the Vatican II documents for two years as Novices and Postulants. Mother's talk was enough for many to just pack up and leave??Can no one write a realistic film about a convent that isn't either as silly as Whoopie or as sadomasochistic as this one? Lord, help us!

A tale regarding the struggles of nuns during the launch of Vatican II in 60's is a message movie w/no message, a drama lacking it, a hodgepodge of cliches, notions & stereotypes if there ever was one. Ping ponging between homosexuality, religious hysteria & extreme penance, I wondered if I was watching a film about the battles for one's soul or an episode of Ninja Warrior where every contestant was wearing habits. If ever a story editor needed to wrest control of a script from a writer, this surely was the case.

Set in the early 1960s and during the era of Vatican II, a young woman in training to become a nun struggles with issues of faith, the changing church and sexuality. Despite Novitiate's talented cast and the settings or the direction as a whole this was a film way too long, with a story that doesn't go anywhere to be honest and perfomances that are a mixed bag (Melissa Leo did a good job tho for the most part) but a film about nun's that is super slow and is 123 minutes? I think was too much for me and the young women who play some of these girls in terms of perfomances were kinda on and off in my opinion at least. (3/10)

I didn't think I would like this movie but I DID.like how deep and realistic it was, I do respect their beliefs but I hope they are more open minded now. I'm not religious and I'm so against religions, so I was happy with the changes after the Vatican 2, they were so hard on themselves before.