Agnes

Agnes

When one night the new nun Agnes (Hayley McFarland) loses control during dinner and begins calling all the other nuns “whores,” making the dishes on the table seem to move with her mind, it’s no wonder they’re freaked out. They’re Carmelite nuns, residing in Santa Theresa, a dreary convent shut off from the rest of the world.

They don’t know how to handle Agnes’ psychotic break, so they do what every movie nun does: strap her down to a bed where she writhes and froths at the mouth while they pray over her. Mother Superior (Mary Buss), with her pinched face and wild eyes, calls the Vatican for backup she’s an intense figure and Mary (Molly C. Quinn), another young nun, watches in horror as her friend transforms.

That’s how Mickey Reece’s effective exorcism drama opens with an exorcism that is not The Main Event but rather Prologue. You’ve expelled the demon from your soul. Now what?

In a compellingly fuzzy flashback, Agnes and Mary sit around smoking cigarettes with their wimples set loosely on their heads (Vatican II has yet to reach this particular convent) and laugh loudly. Whatever their piety might be, they haven’t forgotten about real life (or perhaps running away from it was why they became nuns).

Meanwhile Father Donaghue (Ben Hall) and Father Ben (Jake Horowitz), a young seminarian about to graduate into deaconhood, are sent to deal with things. Donaghue is played by Hall as a secular rake gone religious he takes the Lord’s name in vain; it has been hinted that he is under some sort of unspecified disgrace for “inappropriate” behavior involving altar boys; true to form, he has not been defrocked but moved around from parish to parish on fool’s errands like this one.

He describes exorcism as “one of the most elaborate song and dance acts the world has ever seen,” which is a clue to his profane attitude. The exorcism seems to work at first, and Agnes comes out of her delirium. But the respite doesn’t last long, and things go way south. In desperation Donaghue puts in a call to a priest who is famous and glamorous, Father Black (Chris Browning), but also in disgrace with Rome; he’s still a talk show favorite. Father Black arrives with a babe on his arm, wearing an Errol Flynn mustache, fake tan and shiny eggplant colored suit it’s totally absurd (and very funny).

And then suddenly the movie jumps forward in time. Mary has left the convent; she works at a grocery store now and spends all her time fighting off her leering boss’ advances. Her world is dark and scary and filled with threats that feel like they’re closing in around her from every corner. She goes looking for Paul (Sean Gunn), a small-time stand-up comedian who used to be Agnes’ boyfriend, haunted by Agnes herself though why exactly isn’t clear; she doesn’t let on to Paul what her connection to Agnes is or was, he just thinks she’s a pretty blonde lady interested in his bad jokes.

“Agnes” is a horror movie (kind of) with some blood and guts, and it’s very dark. Even the diner where Father Donaghue tells Ben what’s coming is lit like a bleak morgue, all cold greens and black shadows. Cinematographer Samuel Calvin does some really good work here, and Reece knows when to move the camera but more importantly, when not to. It’s all very beautifully done.

Molly C. Quinn, who also executive produced, gives a performance as Mary that is like watching powerlines quiver in an ice storm; her dissociation and trauma are built into the way she carries herself physically, the way her eyes seem almost frozen over, emotions always lurking on the verge of boiling out. She looks holy but she doesn’t look innocent; Mary has seen things. Her life has not been smooth sailing.

She is good at surviving. There are times you have to remind yourself about the Exorcism Prologue; it exists only as a dreamlike memory, and Agnes haunts this film as much as any demon could do so.

The girls found freedom inside those walls of the convent; they found freedom from everything that would hurt them or scare them or try to kill them “out there.” It’s almost like once Agnes disappears from this movie, hope does too friendship does too intimacy does too? We can’t be sure about any of these things because Reece co-wrote this script with John Selvidge and it’s weird.

The exorcism was just the beginning. Whatever took hold of Agnes (whether it was mental illness or PTSD or an actual demon), it broke her; years later, Mary still hasn’t fixed her back right again. It wasn’t Satan who fucked up both their lives forever: Satan made his entrance and shaped their paths but then he stepped aside for other shit to come flooding through. Nothing can survive here. It’s not the Devil and his minions. The problems keep coming. The world is bad news.

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