AllMovie

The faith of a caring physician and an unquestioningly religious youth is shaken to the core when the pair is inexplicably brought together in a bizarre twist of fate and tragedy in Canadian director Bernard Émond's thought-provoking drama. Jeanne (Elise Guilbault) is a committed Montreal physician whose kindly bedside manner has propelled her to the top of her profession, earning the respect of her peers and the love of her patients. Her faith in humanity is forever shaken when her attempts to aid an abused patient and her helpless child result in a horrific act of violence. When an aimless drive leads her to the town of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré that houses a popular Catholic shrine, her attempt to drown herself in the St. Lawrence River is thwarted by François (Patrick Drolet), a young man commuting to Saint-Anne so that he may recite the novena for his ailing grandmother. As the pair enter into a tenuous friendship and the condition of François' grandmother gradually worsens, the staunchly religious teen begins experiencing his own crisis of faith.