It’s trite and predictable stuff: the laughs are forced; the pathos is over-stewed.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 15, 2023

While there’s nothing outrightly stereotypical here, The Miracle Club suffers from being both sentimental and superficial. It’s exactly the sort of film you suspect was made to cater to American, rather than Irish tastes.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 14, 2023

Some likeable performances — and solid Irish accents — can’t save a dreary parade of clichés. Pray that the Lord forgives these cinematic sins.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 13, 2023

The Miracle Club is the sort of Sunday afternoon entertainment that is as reassuring as a bowl of warm soup; although Thaddeus O’Sullivan’s film errs on the side of the tepid.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 13, 2023

... This is little more than a checklist of themes – Grief! Faith! Feminism! Family! – standing in for any true complexity.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 13, 2023

The Miracle Club’s own maneuverings can, at times, feel a bit pat and convenient. But its final moment of reconciliation... justifies the trip.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 13, 2023

The wan characters never find the profane spark we know they would have possessed. One longs for the late Maeve Binchy to give the thing a vigorous shake. She knew how to make such people live.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 13, 2023

... The screenplay, credited to three actual writers, feels like it’s been spewed out by a malfunctioning AI that was programmed with the catch-all terms “Oireland”, “church”, “priests”, “unwanted pregnancy”, “emigration” and “the craic”.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 12, 2023

The film’s stars make it just about watchable but it’s still a disappointingly trite and shopworn affair. It’s as if three thoroughbreds have been entered in the local donkey derby.

| Oct 12, 2023

This is a film that makes great demands on your piety.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 10, 2023

The great treat is to have another chance to spend some time with Smith, beyond Downton or Alan Bennett. She is, in her quasi-paralytic way, transfixingly wonderful, the smallest twitches and downturns conveying so much experience and contempt.

| Oct 6, 2023

The film succeeds mainly because of a flawless ensemble, among whom viewers can put their faith in the eternally dependable Smith stealing the movie.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jul 29, 2023

Sometimes cleansing truth, forgiveness and reconciliation are the biggest miracles.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 21, 2023

What is transformative in The Miracle Club is the complete shift in tone, and arrival of dramatic gravity, at the moment Linney enters the movie.

| Jul 19, 2023

The Miracle Club is a sincere and meritorious effort, enhanced by John Conroy’s beatific cinematography that vividly captures the quiet stoicism of rural Ireland, but it leaves you empty, undernourished, and wanting more.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 17, 2023

This is a story of forgiveness and understanding, two qualities that seem to be scarce these days. Any movie that encourages people to be kinder to one another gets my vote.

| Jul 16, 2023

A fillm that boasts about as much edge as a digestive biscuit too long dunked in milky tea.

| Jul 14, 2023

The Miracle Club may not be a miraculous cinematic achievement but it does a fine job of dramatizing the healing power of forgiveness.

| Jul 14, 2023

The movie’s nothing special, but it’s worth checking out just for the cast.

| Jul 14, 2023

It's easy to predict how this will go, but with actresses like Bates (whose accent is a bit spotty) and Smith (whose accent is very good), there's always a lot to dig into and appreciate.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jul 14, 2023