The Nun

The Nun (La Religieuse, 2013) — watch online on iFILM — is a French historical drama directed by Guillaume Nicloux, adapted from Denis Diderot's novel written around 1780. Pauline Étienne plays Suzanne Simonin; Isabelle Huppert and Martina Gedeck play the two abbesses who govern her life. A Belgium-Germany-France co-production that screened at the 2013 Berlin Film Festival.

Suzanne was placed in a convent as a young woman — her family couldn't afford a dowry and decided the church would do instead. A sympathetic Mother Superior makes the early years bearable, but she dies, and the woman who takes her place turns convent life into years of coercion and religious fanaticism. Suzanne writes letters pleading for release; no one answers. Nicloux shoots it plainly, no gothic atmosphere — the cruelty here is bureaucratic, not supernatural, and that makes it land harder. Stream The Nun (2013) on iFILM.