So this is a Paul Verhoeven movie, and is an allegedly true story. Watching it on the same night as Fargo meant that we saw two movies that claimed to be true stories, and weirdly this horny nun one might be the truer one.

If that “horny nun” description sounds like it might be tawdry or sleazy, don’t worry, it’s a foreign film (in French), and that means it’s art. I’m being facetious obviously, but also… it honestly kinda is. Yeah, fine, there’s nudity and sexuality, don’t watch it with your small children, but fundamentally the movie is using the life of a 17th-century nun to explore the tension between sincere ecstatic religious belief and con artists.

Because okay, let’s say you’ve got a supposed saint who’s having mystic visions/revelations and stigmata and what not. If you’re not religious, then the only question is whether they’re mentally ill or actively faking it; but if you are religious — and for obvious reasons, religious hierarchies tend to be — you have to be open to the possibility of the genuinely miraculous.

And that’s what this movie grapples with. There are ways in which Benedetta does seem to be sincerely and genuinely religious and all of this is real; and there are ways in which she seems to be pulling a scam. The movie lives in that tension and how it shapes the reaction to her, and it really does work.

I’m not as convinced by its exploration of sapphic love in a nunnery. Here, it really just seems a bit like Verhoeven thought it would be hot to have some nuns getting it on. And I mean, yes, that is a key part of the non-fiction book the movie is based on, and taking it out would be extremely weird; but I think a different director could have done something more interesting with this aspect, as opposed to just using it to spice up a historical movie about religious faith with some nun sex.

Ultimately, I think it’s a good movie, but not a great one.