Melissa Leo, Margaret Qualley Star As Devout Nuns in Novitiate

For many, last night’s Cinema Society screening of Novitiate began as a vocabulary lesson that harkened back to childhood years spent at Sunday school. The film’s medieval Latin title refers to the religious sisters who have not yet taken their official vows, which, at one point in history, required full divestment of their possessions and little contact with the outside world. In short, the novitiate are new nuns, and in the film, the newest is the wide-eyed and newly devout Sister Cathleen.