The Miracle Club – flawed, but worth a view

It’s 1967 in a working-class area of Dublin. Lily and Eileen join up with the much younger Dolly to appear in a Catholic church talent contest as singing trio The Miracles, with the hope of winning a trip to Lourdes.

Eileen has a lump on her breast, Dolly’s young son is non-verbal (we don’t know why), and Lily has simply always wanted to visit.

When they win, all the trio’s husbands try to stop them going, with Dolly’s even saying she needn’t come back if she does go.

The contest takes place after the death of their friend Maureen, and Lily and Eileen are shocked when Chrissy – Maureen’s estranged daughter, who has been in the US for 40 years – actually arrives for the funeral. Tension and bitterness are clear from the outset, and that increases when Chrissy decides to make the pilgrimage with them.

Released last year, The Miracle Club features the last performance from Maggie Smith, who plays Lily.

The script by Jimmy Smallhorne, Timothy Prager and Joshua D Maurer is pretty slender, with plenty of clichés – not least the general uselessness of the husbands around the house and their expectations of what their wives should do.

It is also sketchy in terms of character building – particularly of Chrissy. We learn almost nothing of what her life in Boston over four decades has entailed, yet she seems reasonably well off and clearly has an element of medical knowledge/training.

There are themes of friendship, guilt, grief, reconciliation (a miracle?), together with attitudes toward women and their bodies – including from women themselves.

Thankfully, at a tight 90 minutes, director Thaddeus O’Sullivan’s film doesn’t outstay its welcome – and is an enjoyable watch, thanks largely to the performances, which mean it never descends into mawkish sentimentality (arguably indeed, there is a quiet anger to be found), benefits from some dry humour and is genuinely moving in a number of places.

Alongside the magnificent Smith, Eileen is played with relish by fellow Oscar-winner Kathy Bates, while Golden Globe and Emmy winner (and Oscar and Tony Award nominee) Laura Linney makes the very best job possible of the thin material she had for Chrissy.

As said, the script is not particularly kind to her. She has to do an awful lot of ‘eye acting’, but she does it very, very well indeed.

Agnes O’Casey holds her own as Dolly alongside such legendary talents and a mention for Mark O’Halloran as Father Byrne.

The Miracle Club manages to be sweet and tart at the same time, even with its limitations. It’s currently streaming in the UK on Amazon Prime and is worth 90 minutes of your time.