Marred only by a few Hollywood touches, Peter Mullan's grim, virulent expose of the lifelong enslavement of "fallen women" in the sweatshop laundries of Ireland's Magdalene asylums is an artistic and dramatic triumph (it won the top prize at the 2002 Venice Film Festival, an award that led the Vatican not only to condemn the movie but also to chastise the jurors who voted for it), featuring powerful, intelligent performances by Anne-Marie Duff, Dorothy Duffy, and Nora-Jane Noone as three teenage newcomers to one of the asylums, and a superlative performance, one of the most harrowing I've ever seen, by Eileen Walsh as a sweet simpleton who's driven mad by what happens to her, but whether or not the movie is also a moral triumph I do not know — some critics are saying it's well researched and historically accurate while others are saying it's an unfair hatchet job done by a man with a grudge against the Catholic Church.