Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

First off, Jane Fonda is a wonderful, riveting actress who packs a punch with every performance. In Agnes of God, she delivers on a very personal level, portraying a character very close to herself and bringing passion to the screen. She is also, in her early fifties, looking so loin-scorchingly beautiful that I could hardly restrain myself at times. Despite her wardrobe, depicting a woman who doesn't care to exhibit so loudly her heart-poundingly, blood-throbbingly luscious body, she magnetizes any heterosexual libido watching this film. Now that that's been made clear, I'll return to more practical comments upon this movie.Meg Tilly makes you wonder why her sister is more popular and still working these days. She is haunting as a nun who in mind and spirit is still a naive and innocent little girl, overloaded with imagination and shame for every presentation of any of the realities of being a woman. Each actress in the film matches the other, but only Tilly disturbs us and rocks our emotions.Anne Bancroft, in maybe her best performance short of The Graduate, is wonderful because of how realistic her character is, the sad woman whose present situation brings peace but does not hinder the edge she's developed from life. Her scenes with Fonda are riveting, despite the stage-like speed at which they exchange dialogue which hardly has the effect on screen as it would in the original play. The two actresses develop a swaying arch that lasts throughout the movie, as they meet, and no matter how much they disagree and fight, can still find that one moment in the gazebo where they can connect on a relatively comfortable level. They only hate each other because of what the other represents to the other's desperately fixed opinion, and if things were different, they could get along just like anyone else. I'm not sure if I've ever seen a relationship like that done so well and so clearly in a movie before. It's a rare and odd sort of occurrence and in life that isn't often recognized, and those two actresses performed it with the sharp perception that makes them two of the greatest actresses of the 1960s through the '80s.Agnes of God is directed by Norman Jewison with a sort of effect that films rarely live up to. I don't know if I would call it one of my favorite films, but I would call it a film that sets a perfect example of effective, atmospheric, emotional film-making. Jewison's use of director of photography Sven Nykvist, of Ingmar Bergman fame, gives the film the visual moods it has that Jewison subtly projects on us. Every prop, setting, and landscape is old, almost antique-like, and therein lies feeling and atmosphere. There's a sense of history that is never spoken of. Georges Delerue's music is so packed with weeping, heart-sinking emotion that because of it, tears will strain your eyes. The film is so subtle in its workings, especially on Jewison's handling of the cinematography and music. The music will slowly sneak into a scene and you will hardly notice it's entrance, and it will pack a scene with tension or passion or even fear in any combination of warmth, sneakiness, and atmosphere. The film entrances you because of these subtleties. Jewison will focus so deeply on one setting that it's an entire universe for us, and when a new scene takes place somewhere else, it's jolting. What a sad, powerful, atmospheric film. I cried so hard.

It's got to be something of an inconvenience for a young woman who's devoted her life to serve Him and she finds out that He's places a nasty little trick on her. That's the postulate that AGNES OF GOD, a thriller with a lot of religion and atheism thrown in for good tension, tries to present and pass off without a hitch. The main problem is, that could have been acceptable, had it not introduced a human element -- the possibility of a crime -- into the mix. The crime in question? A young nun's baby, dead under mysterious circumstances, the ensuing investigation which points at clues which seem to point at darker elements, the appearance of the non-believing psychiatrist, played by Jane Fonda who is determined to get to the root of the matter despite the protests of the Mother Superior, played by Anne Bancroft as a woman who abandoned her previous life of worldly pleasures for one of introspection. AGNES OF GOD benefits by these two actresses who play against and with each other grandly, but Meg Tilly's performance is somehow uneven and borders on thankless even when she is the nun caught in the middle of this crux (pun intended). I can't say I was satisfied with the way it wrapped up its mystical dilemma, but there it is, existing, daring you to watch it and make up your own conclusions as to what is valid under the aegis of the Maker.

Having seen this movie for the first time when I was 15 or so, and having no idea what I was watching, I was in for some great viewing when I watched it again 20 years later.The cast, needless to say, is stupendous. Jane Fonda, the late Anne Bancroft, and a fledgling Meg Tilly, back in a time when movies with just women actors were unheard of, especially dramas.The plot of the movie orbits around a crime. In a convent, in the middle of a cold Canadian night, a scream in the darkness uncovers an unconscious Nun, Agnes(Meg Tilly), coverd in blood. After she is taken away the mother superior(Anne Bancroft) finds, to her horror, a dead baby in the waste paper basket in Agnes' cell.Leary of sending a Nun to prison the Candian legal system assigns a psychiatrist (Jane Fonda) to Agnes to determine that Agnes is insane and to have her committed.We soon find out, the Agnes, very young, innocent, and iggnorant of the ways of the world, had no idea that she was pregnant, how she became pregnant, or how anyone becomes pregnant. Agnes often is spoken to by someone she calls "the lady", as well as her dead mother. There are plot twists, and faith based happenings, and possible psychological explanations to things that happen in this movie to the point that would leave anyone guessing.I believe this movie to be a hidden classic. The acting is superb, and seamless. The only thing I would question in this movie is the directors decision to make Jane Fonda's character (Dr. Martha Livingston) smoke so much. It is clear that Ms. Fonda did not smoke at the time, and she handles the cigarettes awkwardly at times.Meg Tilly, however, is the light of this movie. She displays a John Malkovich ability to act seemingly crazy, but somehow not, at the same time.Anne Bancroft, when is there ever anything to say about her, other then utter perfection.The end of the movie leaves the watcher to make his or her own decision. Is Agnes insane? Or was she brutilized horribly by some man that managed to sneak into the convent. Why did the Mother Superior not tell everything she knew sooner? Truly a wonderful piece of film!

When Anne Bancroft died this past year, I remembered this film because of her performance. I can't forget Jane Fonda and Meg Tilly's as well. The three actresses really provided some of their finest performances for the camera. We are left with more questions than answers. But as we go through watching this film, we love Anne's role as the Mother Superior with a few secrets of her own and Jane Fonda as the psychiatrist assigned to Sister Agnes. I love the interaction between Fonda and Bancroft. They're professionals and they're good in this film. That's why the three earned Academy Award nominations. Finally a film about nuns that's not so demeaning or patronizing. Mother Superior joins the convent for her reasons or because she felt chosen to do God's work. Sister Agnes and Mother Superior's relationship is not so obvious to the viewer. YOu have to take into account every word of what is said between these three characters. You feel sorry for Fonda's childless lonely character as well. In the end, we have more questions than answers that are never really resolved but it's a great film and one of Anne's best work.