Forty years after leaving Ireland to settle in the United States, Chrissie (Laura Linney) has returned to the village of Ballygard to attend her mother’s funeral. Soon, she is the victim of the hostility of three friends of the deceased, Lily (Maggie Smith), inconsolable since the drowning of her son 40 years before, Eileen (Kathy Bates), once best friend of Chrissie, and Dolly (Agnes O ‘Casey), who was unborn at the time of the original drama. The latter reproach Chrissie for having abandoned her mother to her fate.
Having won tickets to go to Lourdes, Lily, Eileen and Dolly are shocked to find that Chrissie will also be on the trip thanks to the small inheritance from her mother, who wanted so much to accompany her friends there. They will even go so far as to suspect her of wanting to get hold of Father Dermot (Mark O’Halloran), the organizer of the pilgrimage, the purpose of which is to bring Dolly’s son out of his silence – a very incidental plot incidentally. Left to their own devices, the husbands of Lily (Niall Buggy), Eileen (Stephen Rea) and Dolly (Mark McKenna) believe they can perform miracles by keeping a house.
Between a visit to the cave where the Virgin would have appeared to the young Bernadette Soubirous, a bath in icy holy water and a trip to the religious trinket shops, The Miracle Clubcomedy by Thaddeus O’Sullivan (December Bride, Nothing Personal), promises a lot of backfakes before reaching forgiveness. Set in 1967, shortly before the Troubles broke out in Northern Ireland, the conflicts between these ladies of different generations are like a lace war where they compete in bad faith.
Boasting colorful art direction and believable period re-enactment, which give the film the quaint charm of a modest late 1960s TV production, The Miracle Club essentially draws its strength from the acerbic replies, often full of piquant humor, that the four actresses exchange. Defending characters who are unkind, resentful, stuck in their own lies, steeped in prejudice, all four of them manage to avoid the trap of caricature. For his part, Thaddeus O’Sullivan signs a staging without fuss where he gives pride of place to the actresses, capturing here a murderous gaze, there a pinched smile followed by a silence heavy with meaning.
Forced to bond during their pilgrimage, Chrissie, Lily, Eileen and Dolly will have no other option but to drop the masks and reveal the truth behind Chrissie’s departure and the death of Lily’s son. In the last third, the comedy becomes more and more tearful. Fortunately, Eileen’s crisis of faith, who realizes that miracles are very rare in Lourdes, gives bite to this story of friendship against a backdrop of female emancipation which navigates between the picturesque social chronicle and the melodrama mired in nostalgia. of a fortunately bygone era.