Miracle Club-The Older Ladies Having Fun Together Genre

Recent films like 80 for Brady and Book Club provide a joyous context with which to watch screen legends get meaty roles and have fun playing together. Who knew that, say, Jane Fonda and Mary Steenburgen, knew of each other, and liked acting alongside one another. Aww cute!

The downside is that because these are the filmic equivalent of reunion tours, these types of films (as well as Wild Hogs, Old Dogs, and Last Vegas on the male end) are devoid of conflict.

A couple of Maggie Smith films I’ve recently seen- Ladies in Lavender opposite Judi Dench, and The Miracle Club opposite Laura Linney and Kathy Bates — deal with meaty conflict. It’s a film about the aftermath abortion and Catholic guilt in Ireland. This is what almost every Irish film is about, minus the ones that are about the IRA and the civil war. Magdalene Sisters, Vera Drake, and Philomena are examples. In all seriousness, it was a pretty big tragedy (unless you’re a “Christian” blogger or a pandering right-wing lawmaker) wherein Irish society would often ship away pregnant unmarried women to convents to avoid family shame. The women would have the babies and give them up for adoption.

The film opens with Maggie Smith, Agnes O’Casey, and Kathy Bates (inexplicably sporting a full Irish brogue) as Irishwomen joyfully singing karaoke in what…