The Letters (2015)

I enjoyed seeing The Letters on DVD, since I missed it in the theaters. It reminds me of Jon Voigt in Pope John Paul II (2005), which I also give 4 stars, because while admirable in nearly every way for its production values (script, cinematography, sound, and so on), certain aspects of this film move along at the same steady clip as the rest of the story. As a result of this film’s aim to faithfully depict the life and ministry of Mother Teresa, a certain paint-by-numbers panache develops. (For example, the “call within a call” that Teresa heard on the train is “God’s will” – and those two words remain virtually her only explanation for the sweeping changes she brought to birth for her own life, for the now 4,000 nuns in her order, and for the Church itself, which had rarely if ever released a cloistered nun to live and minister outside of the convent, much less in the filthiest slums of Calcutta, and had not approved a new religious order in 100 years. In this script, each authority, from a municipal manager to the bishop to the cardinal, favorably reviews her applications and passes them along, often the very next day. On the other hand, her patience and grace in awaiting their reply is exemplary.) Juliet Stephenson is wonderful as a living representation of Mother Teresa. Max Von Sydow as her spiritual director, to whom she wrote letters describing the intensely personal spiritual struggle she faced for 60 years, is suitably taciturn as the frame within which we hear the story. Rutger Hauer is the one who presents her case for sainthood to the Vatican. As the director said in the “making of” extra segment, “Every four or five hundred years, someone like this comes along.” Who would not want to watch, listen, and learn as much as possible from so great an example of compassion and humanity? 4 stars. (4-21-2016)