10/10
The Saint for Our Times
20 February 2006
Movies "based" upon real life events are very frequently the most compelling. However, such dramas are not infrequently enhanced by the author to make the characters larger than they could have been in real life. It is seldom that a movie can capture the fullness of a true story without reliance on such dramatizations. This movie is richly and so accurately, the encapsulation of "The Story of A Soul", one of the most published and beloved autobiographies of all time. This story is the true and heart rendering account of a simple young Therese and her sisters, who abandoned incredible and luxurious wealth to live the sacrificial, cloistered—imprisoned—lives of Carmelite nuns in the late 19th Century. Through time, Saint Therese shares directly with her readers, and now with her viewers, the meaning of her incredible "little way", and what it has meant to millions of people for over a century. She is so highly regarded, that only 32 other saints in all of history have been named Doctor of The Church, a title shared by the likes of St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Augustine, St. Francis De Sales, St. Thomas Liguori, St. John of The Cross, St. Catherine of Sienna, and Teresa of Avila, from whom she took her own name. Written under strict obedience of her prioress, and wonderfully captured on film, her story will be treasured until the end of time. This is not simply a Catholic movie written about a Catholic saint. This is a fabulous story about a person who continues to do as she promised, and always will. "I will spend my Heaven doing good upon the earth"
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