Oh My Goodness!

Writers: Cécile Larripa and Philippe Pinel

Director: Laurent Tirard

It’s surprising, given their box office clout, that there aren’t more films about nuns. There are the classics – Black Narcissus, The Sound of Music and Doubt – and then there are the sillier ones like Sister Act and Nuns on the Run. The Academy Awards loves a sister of God, too. Julie Andrews was nominated for Best Actress for her Maria, and Meryl Streep received her 15^th nomination for Doubt’s Sister Aloysius. Susan Sarandon won her only Oscar for Sister Helen in Dead Man Walking. And this year, Isabella Rossellini joins the illustrious convent with her Best Supporting Actress nomination for Conclave. However, Oh My Goodness! hasn’t troubled the awards season.

Nuns on bikes may conjure up Call The Midwife, but Laurent Tirard’s film is more like a twenty-first-century addition to the Carry On franchise. The narrative is decidedly old-fashioned. A group of nuns decide to partake in a bicycle race across the French countryside, but the thing is, they’re not very good…or very fast. However, if they were to win, they would use the prize money to renovate the local old people’s home, and, perhaps more importantly, their Mother Superior would be taken to the Vatican to meet the Pope.

But God loves a trier, and for most of this romp, that trier is Gwendoline, a trainee nun, who’s only at the Convent de l’Elévation because she has nowhere else to go. Her youth and determination mean that the sisters may have a chance at success, although, as the nuns discover, the competition is fierce. First, there’s the squad of middle-aged men who practise hard and, second, there’s a rival group of nuns from the Convent de la Rédemption led by an icy Mother Superior. Both sets of competition have all the gear and the idea.

If only the resulting chaos and sabotages were funnier. Despite the swearing, all the comedy is very gentle. Even the worst Carry On films had more of a sense of naughtiness about them than Oh My Goodness! Only Valérie Bonneton as L’Elévation’s Mother Superior has real comic potential, able to get the laughs just by a wry smile or, ultimately, by gushing tears. The rest of the nuns seem to just blur into one.

Potholes, poison and prayer are the only weapons that our merry band of nuns have at their disposal. Will they be enough to win the race? Or does pride come before a fall? It’s just enough drama to merit its running time, but if only Oh My Goodness! were a lost Carry On with Barbara Windsor as the trainee nun, Hattie Jacques as Mother Superior and Kenneth Williams as the Pope. Now that would be something.

OhMyGoodness! (Juste Ciel!) will be in UK Cinemas from 14th March.