Cloistered Nun Leads Order of Outstanding Films

By Jennifer Merin

WeNews film critic

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

October brings a rich autumn harvest of movies where women star and direct. "Vision," about a 12th century nun, Hildegard von Bingen, vies for top interest in a heavy-duty lineup that also includes "Secretariat," "Freakonomics" and the last of Stieg Larsson's Lisbeth Salander trilogy.

(WOMENSENEWS)--October is bursting with great movies, but the most mesmerizing might just be "Vision," a haunting biodrama based on the life of Hildegard von Bingen, a 12th century nun.

It opens Oct. 13 in limited release and is directed by Germany's Margarethe von Trotta, who began her laudable directing career after starring in films by Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Volker Schlondorf.

Barbara Sukowa, in her third collaboration with von Trotta, plays the leading role. Unyielding faith and superb negotiation skills allow her character to succeed in building a cloister that was exclusively for women, without the protection and-or supervision of men. The movie is dark, fascinating and a reminder of the deep roots of religious women's tough and ongoing power struggle.

Backing up a few days, get ready for strong performances by actresses in three terrific films that are battling for big box office sales all on the same Oct. 8 release date.

Most highly anticipated is "Secretariat," the story of the woman behind the legendary thoroughbred who won the Triple Crown in 1973. Diane Lane stars as Penny Chenery, who, having graduated from Smith College, studied at Columbia University's Business School and raised four children. She transformed her family's failing Meadow Farm into a stable of champions and spurred Secretariat to set a record in horse racing history. Lane is as brilliant as ever.

Stephen Frears' "Tamara Drewe" is an adaptation of Posy Simmonds' enormously popular eponymous graphic novel, in which a successful, stylish and spoiled, but lonely, London columnist returns to her country home after having had an appearance-altering nose job. Gemma Atherton stars in this charming satire of contemporary British bourgeois country life.

"Nowhere Boy" is a compelling biopic about a young Liverpool lad named John Lennon and his relationship to two women who shaped his life. Kristin Scott Thomas plays Lennon's strict and protective aunt and Anne-Marie Duff is his sadly well-meaning but neglectful mother.

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