There are times in life when nothing makes sense anymore. It feels like you're in a new season of your life, but the writers have clearly gone on strike and left you with no script. You're not even sure what genre it is: Drama? Comedy? A documentary on existential suffering? You wake one morning and unfortunately realize something silently unraveled while you weren't looking.
It happens again and again throughout the film, every time I watch, every time Meg Tilly is on screen as the titular Agnes. In one scene, she is being hypnotized, and though her eyes are closed tears still seep out-one glistens on her lashes like a gemstone-and I know with a knowledge that doesn't deal in words but rather in feeling that what I am seeing is the truth, the truth of a woman's experience.