As Immaculate opens, we are shown a young woman, ardently praying to the Virgin before packing a bag and attempting to leave – though pausing to steal a substantial bunch of keys from an elderly woman’s bedside cabinet. She’s trying to escape from a convent, as revealed by the ominous group of nuns who intercept her before she can – entirely – get out through the gates. It’s a cruel, alarming sequence and as such, an honest introduction to the film; it also bodes ill for new novice Cecilia (Sydney Sweeney), newly arrived in Italy and excited to take her vows. America, she frets, just isn’t able to give her the kind of spiritual succour which she craves. Well, as with everything, be careful what you wish for.
The convent itself is beautiful; it houses a hardworking group of Sisters, all of whom seem proud of the Order’s long history, even those who are – as the supremely unimpressed Sister Isabelle has it – about to ‘meet God’. Perhaps surprisingly, there are a lot of younger nuns here: I’m reminded of one of my favourite search histories, whereby someone visited this site based on the search term ‘hot nuns surely they exist’ [sic]. However, these young girls are ‘broken birds’: runaways, unstable, or a bit of both. Despite this, and despite a few misgivings creeping in, Cecilia is resolute, taking her vow as planned. The ceremony is beautiful too: this is, on the whole, a very picturesque film. It also starts gently showing to us that much of this devout faith could be characterised as hypocritical: vows of poverty and chastity take place against a backdrop of moribund finery. Even if the chastity element is safe in this remote spot, then the charity part looks a little more problematic, at least in some respects. There’s plenty of finery here. And there are other, more acute discrepancies too: Cecilia begins to espy private rituals, isolated supplicants; there are odd sights, sounds, odd dreams. By day, the very real charity and care work performed by the women serves as quite a contrast, but there is clearly more to this place.
Things change, shall we say, a lot more significantly when Cecilia is confronted by a… change in her circumstances, shifting both her relationship with her Order and with the Order’s personable young priest, Father Sal (Álvaro Morte), who seems to take an especial interest in this resolute, if traumatised young woman. Reconfiguring both her role and her future in the convent, Cecilia is by turns alienated, celebrated – and confined. And that’s just the start. Oh really, it is.
This is such a fun – fun? – film to unpack. There’s the supercharged patriarchy of the Catholic Church, the intersection of science and faith, and the way that things which can’t be, must somehow be. At the centre of it all is the female body, and its persistent, pesky calls for autonomy – here, played out in a bizarre microcosm where the powers that be do not want to give up their prize. There’s no space to relax in Immaculate, which works in its favour: its at-first charming domestic sphere turns out to be terrifying, less a haven and more a trap. Sydney Sweeney plays it perfectly as Cecilia, too, never overplaying her part (and, thankfully, she’s given the right amounts of silence and space. There’s more to a performance than dialogue, which both actors and filmmaker appreciate here).
It’s hard, at this point, not to mention a certain…other film, a film where a young woman gets systematically isolated and lied to by a group which is exploiting her and her body. It’s almost a shame not to be able to talk about this other film without absolutely spoiling Immaculate, as in many ways Michael Mohan’s vision feels like a stylish update on that particular seminal horror. But even…the film I’m not going to mention for fear of spoilers never musters quite this level of escalating, engrossing batshittery. That’s a compliment, by the way. Immaculate is much more grisly, more overtly cruel and more expansive, whilst just as thought-provoking. I also very much enjoyed its dark, witty use of symbolism, its touches of deft humour and its boldness.
Whilst it could be dispiriting to think that, well over half a century since the film which must not be mentioned was made, we’re still imagining horror narratives whereby women’s rights over their own flesh are taken from them, there’s a kind of riotous comfort in the redemptive fightback on offer here, as the film goes where I did not expect it to go. It makes you inwardly cheer some rather grim behaviour – because you are so totally on side with Sweeney’s character by the end that there feels like no other sensible reaction, and that’s quite something. Immaculate is an incredibly strong and assured film, offering a deftly paced blend of brutality and smarts. I hope Mohan makes more horror.