July 16, 2006
The Nun's Story
DVD - I just finished watching Audrey Hepburn in The Nun's Story. Wow! After seeing her in things like Roman Holiday and Sabrina, it was a bit of a stretch initially. The latter are romances but this was such a drama. If only I had watched the theater trailer the ending wouldn't have hit me like a ton of bricks.
Let me just come out and say it: in the end Sister Luke (Hepburn) leaves the convent and her religious vocation. If such a film were done today, you would expect it was because she had a love affair or was tortured. That was not the case here. Try as she did throughout the whole movie, she could not master obedience, humility, and charity and she felt she was cheating not only her fellow sisters, but God and herself if she stayed.
The film was pretty faithful to and respectful of the struggles she went through to become a nun. It spent the first hour covering her entrance, her time as a postulant, and her time as a novice. You get a whole new admiration for what is involved in that vocation. About an hour into the movie she finally gets her dream of doing missionary work in the Congo, but even that wasn't exactly what she had hoped for. Throughout it all she struggles to keep her emotions in check, particularly her pride and vanity and those disappointments that occur when she can't do the work she really wants to do. Alas, she never quite conquers them and the film ends rather quickly with her return to... well... regular life.
The movie is about 2 1/2 hours long. Filmed in 1959, it is in color. It is not a comedy, nor a romantic 'chick flick'. It's my understanding that when it showed in theaters nearly 50 years ago, the conclusion left the audiences in silence. I could believe it. You're speechless at the end. She did such great work! She excelled in medicine. The people loved her so. She struggled for so long and then... it's over. She signs her papers, she takes off her habit, and exits by a door off her changing room that leads directly to the outside. Your jaw just drops. No, that can't be the end! Unlike modern movies, this had it's credits near the beginning so it really is over as she steps back out onto the streets in plain clothes to start her life over. A few dramatic orchestra notes and the scenes fades.