Lent Movie Reviews Week 2: Mother Teresa

  Last week I announced that I would post a movie review up every remaining week of lent. My first review was of Becket (1964) this week I'm reviewing Mother Teresa (2003).

  Mother Teresa is a TV movie released in 2003. It stars Olivia Hussey as the titular saint and was directed by Fabrizio Costa. It tells the story of Mother Teresa's life, from her early days as a nun to her death. 
  
  The real Mother Teresa was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu in Albania in 1910. In 1928, at the age of 18 she felt the call to religious life and joined the Sisters of Loreto in Ireland, taking on the name Teresa after her patron, St. Theresa of Lisieux. She was sent to the novitiate in Calcutta India a year later. For the next 17 years she would serve their as a teacher at St. Mary's Bengali Medium School. In 1946, on a train trip to Darjeeling Mother Teresa felt a second calling: to return to Calcutta and serve the poorest of the poor in the streets. This would eventually give rise to her order the Missionaries of Charity, as other young woman came to join in her mission. In 1950 the Vatican approved the official establishment of this congregation and in 1965 Pope Pious VI granted permission to expand it to other countries. By the time of Mother Teresa's death in 1997 it would grow to include over 4,000 members. The Missionaries of Charity continue to serve the poor all over the world to this day.
  
  The film is mainly about Mother Teresa's struggle to start the Missionaries of Charity and then later to build a leper colony she calls the City of Peace (Shanti Nagar). In order to start her congregation, Mother Teresa has to confront the Church's resistance initial to forming a new religious community as well as receive permission from the Archbishop of Calcutta to openly serve the poor in the streets. When trying to build the City of Peace she struggles to raise enough money and to meet the proper legal requirements. To complicate issues there are multiple scandals stirred up by a certain ambitious English journalist.  She faces these problems with unbounded trust in God and support from her friend Father Van Exam and later Father Serrano, a priest initially sent from Rome to determine the merit of starting Mother's congregation who decides to stay and help her. 
  
  The biggest problems I have with the film are its lack of internal struggles for the character and it's sometimes episodic narrative. Late in the film, Mother Teresa tells Van Exam that she is experiencing a spiritual dryness and feels abandoned by God. Than it skips to a few years later and she is finally relieved from this dark night of the soul. The struggle itself is never really explored. This skipping over many years happens alot in the film and accounts for the episodic feel I mentioned. According to Steven Greydanus' review, there were about 70 minutes cut out of the US version of this film from its original Italian release. That might go to explain alot. In addition to these pacing/narrative issues the film also has dialogue problems. Though admirably utilizing many actual quotes from the saint, much of the dialogue in the film comes off as stilted and uninteresting. 
  
  Despite these problems the film still fairly watchable, thanks large in part to Olivia Hussey's performance and also the inspiring nature of the story. It was certainly at least good enough to make me want to check out the Italian version. 

Score: 7.5/10