Dark Habits (1983) on Netflix
A cabaret singer in Madrid supplies her lover with heroin. He dies of an overdose, and she hides in a convent of the Humiliated Redeemers, whose nuns each have their own pursuits.
- Netflix3.5/5
- IMDb6.5/109,386 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes75%
Trailer
Plot summary
Yolanda sings in a Madrid nightclub and brings heroin to her lover, who dies of an overdose. Fleeing the police, she asks for shelter at a convent of the Humiliated Redeemers, an order devoted to redeeming fallen women. The convent is in disrepair and its finances are shaky since the Marchioness, its main supporter, stopped paying the annuity. The community is the Mother Superior, four nuns and the chaplain, and the Mother Superior has given the nuns harsh new names, among them Sister Manure, Sister Damned, Sister Snake and Sister Sewer Rat. Each nun has her own pursuit: a pet tiger, thoughts of penitence, lurid novels written in secret, and clothing for statues of the Virgin Mary. The Mother Superior, already an admirer of Yolanda, welcomes her into the convent.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Dark Habits (1983)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Almodóvar rewrote Dark Habits to give a more prominent role to the nuns of the convent where the singer hides, because Cristina Sánchez Pascual, the actress the film was intended for, had limited acting skills.
- Dark Habits was rejected by the Cannes Film Festival for its apparently sacrilegious treatment of religion, and although it premiered at the Venice Film Festival, some of the organizing committee considered it blasphemous and anti-Catholic and it was not shown in the official section.
