The miracle of The Miracle Club is that it does, I promise, end

The Miracle Club, which is about a group of Irish women who travel to Lourdes, has a magnificent cast – Maggie Smith, Kathy Bates, Laura Linney – and it inspired me to pray. ‘Dear God,’ I found myself praying mid-way through, ‘let this be over soon.’ The film’s stars make it just about watchable but it’s still a disappointingly trite and shopworn affair. It’s as if three thoroughbreds have been entered in the local donkey derby.

It is written by Jimmy Smallhorne, Timothy Prager and Joshua D. Maurer, and directed by Thaddeus O’Sullivan. I’ve just looked him up and can see he directed some episodes of Call the Midwife, which makes sense, as the film has a Sunday-evening TV vibe. It’s set in Ireland in the sixties where Lily (Smith) and Eileen (Bates, whose accent is fine, if spotty) live in a religious, working-class area of Dublin. They have known each other forever and, along with their young neighbour, Dolly (Agnes O’Casey), sign up for the local parish talent contest to win tickets for a pilgrimage to Lourdes. (I was more enticed by the second prize: a joint of bacon.)

They’re a singing act, The Miracles, and on the night of the contest perform ‘He’s So Fine’ by The Chiffons, and it is fun watching Maggie Smith do the ‘doo-lang, doo-lang, doo-lang’ part, even if Lady Grantham would be horrified. The evening is then disturbed by the appearance of Chrissie (Linney), who has returned after an absence of 40 years. She is greeted frostily. I intuited the following: secrets will out.

All four are after a Lourdes miracle, for reasons that are laid out heavy-handedly. Eileen has discovered a lump on her breast.