“Holy Days” feels like a hit comedy from 1947, missing only the periodic musical numbers where nuns do soft-shoe with local children and then giggle at their own naughtiness. Good wholesome fun for the whole family. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s hard to figure out who Nathalie Boltt’s film is actually for, unless it’s fans of Joy Cowley’s novel, on which the film is based. There’s strong emotion in “Holy Days,” but it results entirely from the talented cast. The story’s structure is so phony and over-determined that there is no real suspense, and, even more deadly, the tone is artificially “comedic.” True moments of unfettered humor are nowhere to be seen.
Sister Agnes (Judy Davis), Sister Mary Clare (Jacki Weaver), and Sister Luke (Miriam Margolyes) live in a ramshackle convent, the only holdouts from a once-bustling past. They are elderly, and Sister Luke is experiencing the onset of dementia, but they care for one another and their flock. Behind their backs, the hypocrite priest (Jonny Brugh), with a taste for alcohol and gambling, teams up with the greedy bishop (John Bach) to sell the property to a developer, forcing the nuns out. The nun trio comes up with a plan to resist that involves a madcap road trip to New Zealand’s South Island, where they bring along a small local boy named Brian (Elijah Tamati) on a quest of his own.
Having not read the source material, I can’t speak to the faithfulness of the adaptation. There are themes touched on, but only glancingly: the threat of being “put out to pasture” when you are no longer perceived as useful; the betrayal the nuns feel at being deemed “done”; the need for companionship and liveliness (especially as people age). Since the nuns are played by heavy-hitting actresses like Davis, Weaver, and Margolyes, women who are damn near institutions, there is powerful subtext, whether the script allows room for it or not. Watching these three play around with the predictable material is the main pleasure of “Holy Days.”
Young Tamati, making his film debut as Brian, is not an overtrained little-kid actor. He feels very real. Brian, a young boy grieving his dead mother, gravitates towards the convent because the nuns understand him and care for him. When Brian wraps himself up in his mother’s clothes and hides in her closet to sob out his heartbreak, you’d have to be cold-hearted not to feel his anguish. Brian shows up every day at the convent to confess his “blasphemery” to Sister Agnes, but everyone knows his “confession” is just an excuse to get out of his house. His widowed father (Craig Hall) has a new girlfriend (played by Boltt), and Brian is not taking it well.
Why the nuns pile into the car they “borrow” from the priest, and why Brian tags along, is not really important. They are on a journey, and there’s no time to waste. Along the way, there are little pitstops and adventures, culminating in a hallucinatory snowstorm sequence, the overall effect of which is beyond Boltt’s grasp. You can dimly sense what should be happening, and the effect the scene should have. The sequence doesn’t land, and it should.
“Holy Days” depends on an audience finding nuns funny, especially when they drive cars, crack jokes, or throw back a glass of wine. As someone with two nuns in my family, I do not find the mere existence of nuns living their lives in the modern world inherently humorous. “Sister Act” played with the idea in more inventive ways, adding a mob element and the conflict between the nuns and the Las Vegas lounge singer hiding out among them. It plays like a farce. When the nuns bust out of their accepted roles, it is hilarious because the setup is so absurd. Absurdity is crucial to the humor.
Here, the nuns are meant to be funny because they drive slowly and bribe their way onto a crowded ferry, because Sister Luke’s dentures keep falling out, and Sister Agnes keeps sneaking cigarettes. It’s not nearly enough.
