It has the quality of hit-or-miss contrivance rather than homely, schoolgirl truth.

Silly fluff with top-notch performers. No one else could say "scathingly brilliant" with as much scathing brilliance as Hayley Mills, and Russell is magnificently wry as Mother Superior.

It is frighteningly easy to get nuns all wrong on the screen and terribly difficult to do them justice, especially today when their proper identity is being so hotly debated inside as well as outside convents.

An essentially charming confection.