THE MIRACLE CLUB – Review by Valerie Kalfrin
Working-class Dublin and the women who want something more out of life are the core of The Miracle Club, an ensemble dramedy about a pilgrimage to Lourdes, the Catholic shrine in France where the Virgin Mary is believed to have appeared in 1858.
Maggie Smith (Downton Abbey), Kathy Bates (Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret), and Laura Linney (Ozark) lead an esteemed cast in a story that has so much on its mind at times, the tone and the pacing are uneven. Still, fans of the three may find this story rewarding, especially in its focus on honesty and forgiveness.
Millions of people have traveled to Lourdes in search of a miracle over the years. As the story opens, the local church plans a trip to Lourdes with tickets included as the top prize of a local talent show.
Lily (Smith), Eileen (Bates), and Dolly (Agnes O’Casey, TV’s Dangerous Liaisons) “do-lang, do-lang” their way charmingly through a performance of “He’s So Fine,” hoping to win the tickets for Dolly and her young son, Daniel, who has never spoken. Doctors at the time don’t know why.
Eileen is furtive about finding a lump in her breast, treating it with holy water and little else. Lily, meanwhile, wants to take the trip because “I’m running out of chances.”
Weighing on Lily’s heart is the death of her 19-year-old son, Declan, forty years earlier—about the same time that her best friend, Maureen, banished her daughter, Chrissie, to America. Modern viewers will quickly surmise why Chrissie (Linney) was sent packing once she returns for her mother’s funeral, triggering barbed and brittle comments from Lily and Eileen.
Insisting she doesn’t need a cure, Chrissie winds up joining the trip to Lourdes in her mother’s place at the suggestion of the compassionate Father Byrne (Mark O’Halloran).
Meanwhile, the men in the local women’s lives balk at handling the cooking and child care while they’re gone. “What’ll I do on my own?” yelps Lily’s husband.
“Go back to bed. You’ll be safe there,” she says.
Director Thaddeus O’Sullivan (Hidden Assets) and cinematographer John Conroy (The Name of the Rose) lovingly film the women, the countryside, and the shrine in natural light. When the sunlight beams from behind the basilica in Lourdes, it looks every bit as hopeful as the faces of the characters peering from the bus windows.
The script by Jimmy Smallhorne (2by4), Timothy Prager (Silent Witness), and Joshua D. Maurer takes a while to gel, and the men’s struggles back home provide some comedic moments that are tonally jarring with the revelations in Lourdes.
Nevertheless, Linney, Bates, Smith, and O’Casey are affecting. Linney and Smith especially have some touching moments in the third act, as do Linney and O’Casey, whose character fears she’s a terrible mother for various reasons.
The Miracle Club is a quiet film not for everyone, though that’s perhaps befitting its theme of quiet miracles.
