Thérèse

An anonymous commenter at Barbara Nicolosi's blog summed the movie up well:

I saw the film and it's OK. The last half hour is excellent and I applaud them for taking this risk.

The last half hour has some wonderful moving moments, which make the flaws elsewhere in the film puzzling. The actors are at their best when they're conveying their characters' emotions, but at the beginning they're too understated. For that part of the movie, the girls seem less like living children rather than sedate figures from a series of tableaux, speaking Victorianese.

The film begins with the death of mother Zélie, so that we don't get to see what role she played in Therese's formation. It's a pity, since she's a Blessed along with her husband, and presumably a wonderful person, but the audience is left knowing virtually nothing about her. From then on, grief and sorrow take all their breath away, and only as the action starts to shift toward the Carmel of Lisieux does the movie come to life for the first time.

The best performance in the movie is that of Linda Hayden, whose Pauline provides the Marian, motherly, steadying complement to Lindsay Younce's Therese, as the saint is conformed to Jesus in her own 'Passion'.

Not in 96 minutes, and perhaps not in any one movie, can the story of St. Therese be told as it deserves. This film is however, a good companion to the 1986 Therese, which is the place to look for a better representation of Therese's thought and spirituality, but tells little about her early life. (Caution: it's not suitable for kids.)

For those of you blessed with worldly curiosity, figures on the box-office gross are on-line. The showing I attended Monday evening had about 12 viewers.