History Film / TheMagdaleneSisters

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Magdaelene_Sisters_7786.jpg]]

* TheAlcatraz: Subverted. The laundry is easily accessible and on the edge of a town. The girls are only kept in their room with a chair in front of the door (though they do eventually fit a lock on it). There's even a back gate, but the girls are kept in there through StockholmSyndrome and the knowledge that the world wouldn't accept them if they did escape.

* HadToComeToJailToBeACrook: Bernadette was forced into the laundry for being promiscuous, but in fact it never went beyond flirting and she's a virgin. To try and escape, she attempts to seduce Brendan.

This film follows four women in one of the laundries in the 1960s. We have Margaret, a woman raped by her cousin at a wedding and sent there because she is no longer a virgin. There's Rose, who has just had a baby out of wedlock, being forced to put him up for adoption before being sent away. Bernadette is a teenage orphan sent to the laundry because she was thought to be too flirtatious with some of the local boys and, unlike the other girls, she is still a virgin. There's Crispina, sent to the laundry years ago for having a baby out of wedlock and is now quite unstable. The entire laundry is run by the malevolent Sister Bridget.

* DrivenToSuicide: Crispina after she loses her St. Christopher medal. She sleeps on wet sheets to make herself sick and tries to hang herself in the dormitory. Her WhereAreTheyNow text states that she later dies of anorexia.

** The priest strips naked in the middle of a sermon. He's a middle-aged man who's been molesting Crispina.

** Sister Bridget never gets any comeuppance beyond knowing she let two girls escape in exchange for the key to the safe. She'll likely stay at the laundry for years abusing the girls, and won't be exposed until the 2000s by which she'll probably be dead.

** Or for that matter, what happened to the priest who was exposed for molesting Crispina. Likely he was transferred to another parish and everyone pretended it never happened.

* WrongfullyCommitted: Crispina is sent to a psychiatric hospital by the nuns after it's revealed she was raped by the parish's priest in order for her to keep her abuse a secret.

* AmbiguousDisorder: Crispina has some kind of disability, and it's unknown if she was traumatised by the incident that left her pregnant or else she already had some kind of mental illness. Or simply she could have grown up quite sheltered, as one of the documentary subjects in ''Sex in a Cold Climate'' (who admits to not even knowing she was in a prison for most of her life).

* RuleAbidingRebel: Invoked by Margaret when [[spoiler: she's about to leave the laundry. On her way out, she refuses to get out of Sister Bridget's way. Sister Bridget responds that "you'll be staying then?"

** Margaret's cousin rapes her and she ends up being punished. Granted we never find out what happened to him but it still fits this trope.

* OhCrap: Margaret when she sees her sister telling her father that she's just been raped. Bernadette when the nuns discover her trying to escape.

** We likewise never find out what became of the cousin that raped Margaret at her sister's wedding.

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Brendan is last seen driving away in the back of the delivery van, with no explanation of what happened to him.

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: Bernadette, Rose and Margaret all get to leave the laundry but are traumatised by their experiences, though they do lead full lives. However the rest of the girls and hundreds more endure life in the laundry and Crispina [[FromBadToWorse dies of anorexia in the asylum she is sent to]]. It's then revealed that the last laundry closed in 1996.]]
* BlondeBrunetteRedhead: Blonde Rose, dark brown Bernadette, reddish-brown Margaret and black haired Crispina. There's also a red haired girl whose name is never mentioned.

* DefiledForever: Margaret is raped by her cousin and she's punished by being sent to the laundry, because she's no longer a virgin.

* DrivenToSuicide: Crispina after she loses her St Christopher medal. She sleeps on wet sheets to make herself sick and tries to hang herself in the dormitory. Her WhereAreTheyNow text states that she later dies of anorexia.

** Una's hair grows back too, but not to its original length, symbolising how she's accepted she can't go home and will become a nun herself.
* FanDisservice:
** The nuns make all the girls strip off their clothes and perform exercises while they judge who has the biggest breasts, hairiest area and other unpleasant things.

* {{Hypocrite}}: Several of the nuns. Sister Bridget, in particular, preaches against earthly pleasures while pocketing most of the laundry's profits and she and the other nuns dine on bacon, sausage, buttered toast and fruit for breakfast while the girls are forced to eat stale bread and porridge.

* PetTheDog: At Christmas all the girls in the laundry are allowed to watch a film (though most of them are bored by it) and they also each get an orange laid on their bed.

* StepfordSmiler: Sister Bridget is a type C while all the girls in the laundry are type As, most visible when they walk through town smiling to onlookers.

* DefiledForever: Margaret is raped by her cousin and she's punished by being sent to the laundry - because she's no longer a virgin.

* FreakierThanFiction: Despite being based on a real case, the film tones down the habitual violence the girls endured under the nuns's hands and also showed the girls speaking to each other and forming friendships - in reality, both were forbidden.
* HairOfGoldHeartOfGold: Rose is a blonde and she is the kindest of the protagonists. She's also proved to be ThePollyanna [[spoiler: and remains a Christian until her death]].
* {{Hypocrite}}: Several of the nuns. Sister Bridget, in particular, preaches against earthly pleasures while pocketing most of the laundry's profits.

* KickTheDog: Sister Bridget loves to do this. She laughs cruelly at Una as she tries to pick up her cut off hair. Also she hits Rose when she asks if she can send a birthday card to her son.

* SoBeautifulItsACurse: Bernadette is punished for her beauty - because boys flirt with her a lot, she's sent to the laundry. The negative effects of this are shown in the ending [[spoiler: where Bernadette walks down a busy street and everyone stares at her simply because [[HelloNurse she's so gorgeous]] but it clearly makes her uncomfortable]].