The Visitation

Two little Catholic girls who thrill to the sufferings of the virgin martyrs receive a Visitation from the BVM herself in New Zealander Reidy's witty, didactic satire of growing up Catholic during the 1960s and '70s. The lives of Theresa and Catherine Flynn are dominated by their preoccupation with sin, prayers, nuns, priests and, above all, their tyrannical, ultra-Catholic father. The girls find respite only in fantasies of becoming saints themselves and in the company of ""Smoking Nana,"" their outspoken, atheist maternal grandmother. One day, the Virgin Mary appears to the girls in their backyard with a plan for the Catholic women of the world: contraception. The girls don't know what that is but deliver the message excitedly to their dad. He and the local priest deal rather predictably with challenge, but they can't deter the progress of the Virgin--or keep the Flynn girls from growing up. As the sweet innocents turn into passionate young women, they battle to break free from their father's obsessive control; at the same time, their downtrodden, baby-machine mother learns to blame the church for many of her tribulations. If the scenario sounds grim, never fear. Reidy's (The Modettes) joie de vivre and infectious sense of humor keep her portrait of Catholic childhood at once funny, affectionate and eminently entertaining. (Dec.)