Reflections on Devotion in the High Desert

Read Time:4 Minute, 49 Second

MOVIE REVIEW
Final Vows
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Genre: Documentary
Year Released: 2024, 2025
Runtime: 1h 24m
Director(s): Victoria Westover
Where to Watch: Available April 15, 2025, here: www.amazon.com

RAVING REVIEW: There’s something unique about a documentary that refuses spectacle and instead settles into silence. FINAL VOWS does exactly that—delivering a restrained, thoughtful portrait of women who’ve made a life out of quiet discipline. Set against the desert backdrop of Arizona, this story unfolds in a place that feels untouched by time but grapples with its passage. Director Victoria Westover doesn’t chase dramatics. Instead, she lets the heart of monastic life do the talking—offering a measured, at times meditative exploration that’s less about conclusions and more about questions we don’t often ask.

Structured more like a character study than a plot-driven push, the film starts with a detailed look at the nuns’ daily rituals. At 4 a.m., they begin praying before moving into a work schedule that includes producing altar bread to help fund their abbey. It's an observational approach that resists narration or over-explanation, allowing viewers to sink into the repetitive structure of their days. This choice helps us understand what they do and how doing it repeatedly becomes a form of spiritual reinforcement.

FINAL VOWS presents its subjects with rare respect. The camera lingers—not in a voyeuristic way but in quiet companionship—on small moments: folding laundry, preparing meals, walking through the grounds. These mundane acts become loaded with meaning, particularly when framed within a lifestyle built around devotion. It’s a smart strategy that grounds the film without making it stagnant. Westover’s eye for stillness doesn’t bore; it beckons.

However, the film isn’t content with staying in a state of reverence. The undercurrent of change, aging, and uncertainty slowly builds across its runtime. While there’s no “plot twist,” the Abbey’s current crisis looms large: the nuns are aging, and fewer young women are entering monastic life. This creeping tension gives the film some shape and stakes, especially with the potential retirement of their longtime Abbess nearing. The age limit set by their order means that a central figure—an emotional and structural anchor—may soon have to step down. It’s a real-world issue that lends the film its emotional weight without ever slipping into sensationalism.

Thematically, FINAL VOWS tackles aging, permanence, and legacy without preaching. The question isn't just whether this specific abbey can continue but whether such institutions have a place in a rapidly changing world. We should consider whether we, as a society, even value lives lived in silence, service, and separation. These questions are floated rather than hammered home, and that restraint is part of the film’s power. The stakes aren’t just personal—they’re cultural.

The film succeeds because it allows complexity to exist without always resolving it. It doesn’t wrap its subjects in a sentimental glow or treat them as relics. It simply observes—and in that quiet observation, meaning accumulates. That’s a strength not many documentaries lean into anymore.

Cinematography plays a significant role in reinforcing the film’s tone. The juxtaposition between the stark, open desert and the closed, carefully maintained interior spaces of the Abbey mirrors the nuns’ lives. A lovely visual contrast at play here speaks to the bigger themes about how chosen limitations can offer a kind of freedom. And while the film doesn’t overwhelm, the natural soundscape—the wind, the footsteps, the chanting—does more than enough. It’s all part of a directorial approach that values restraint over flair.

FINAL VOWS feels more like a meditation than a statement. It lets its subjects speak for themselves. It doesn’t pretend to have solutions, but it knows how to ask meaningful questions and gives those questions room to breathe. This movie is about quiet lives, but its impact echoes beyond its final frame.

This is worth the time for anyone who’s ever wondered what it looks like when a film respects its subjects without editorializing them. It’s not trying to entertain in the traditional sense, and that’s a large part of its charm. There are no sweeping declarations, no tidy resolutions—just a calm, steady gaze at people who made a choice most of us couldn’t imagine. It might not be everyone’s style, but this grounded storytelling deserves attention.

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[photo courtesy of FIRST RUN FEATURES]

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