Synopsis
When a dead newborn is found, wrapped in bloody sheets, in the bedroom wastebasket of a young novice, psychiatrist Martha Livingston is called in to determine if the seemingly innocent novice, who knows nothing of sex or birth, is competent enough to stand trial for the murder of the baby.
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Cast
- Jane FondaDr. Martha Louise Livingston
- Meg TillySister Agnes
- Anne BancroftMother Miriam Ruth
- Anne PitoniakDr. Livingston's Mother
- Winston RekertDet. Larry Langevin
- Gratien GélinasFather Martineau
- Guy HoffmannJustice Joseph Leveau
- Gabriel ArcandMonsignor
- Françoise FaucherEve LeClaire
- Jacques TourangeauEugene Lyon
Recommendations
- 90
Orlando Sentinel
The movie contains Jane Fonda's first big-screen appearance since On Golden Pond (1981); if she doesn't quite find a character in Martha, she is nonetheless riveting. Anne Bancroft, too, is impressive. Finally, though, it is Meg Tilly who makes the movie live. Her performance, which works on both realistic and symbolic levels, allows you to believe in the story. - 75
TV Guide Magazine
Though the plot has some annoying holes, the dialogue and the performances are excellent. - 70
Time Out
Splendidly shot by Sven Nykvist and with excellent performances, it's an agreeable puzzle which doesn't, thank heaven, come up with a solution to the meaning of life. - 63
Chicago Tribune
What`s lacking is a clear conception on Jewison`s part as to what this film is about. - 60
Variety
Fonda’s relentless interrogating, mannered chain-smoking and enforced two dimensionality cause her to become tiresome very early on. She remains a brittle cliche of a modern professional woman. Bancroft gives a generally highly engaging performance as a religious woman too knowledgeable to be one-upped by even the craftiest layman. - 50
The New York Times
The material itself, thoroughly unsurprising on the stage, is if anything even more so on the screen. - 40
Los Angeles Times
Tedious and contrived. - 40
Washington Post
Agnes of God offers little besides its jury-rigged suspense. Oh, there are oodles of cigarette jokes -- Livingston is a chain smoker, Mother Miriam a reformed one -- till you wonder why the acknowledgment to Benson & Hedges in the closing credits didn't come above the title.
