Dorathen Better Late Then Never

Ketrivie It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

Salubfoto It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

Rio Hayward All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Robert J. Maxwell Belgium, 1930. Audrey Hepburn, daughter of a famous surgeon (Jagger), joins a convent, undergoes a rigorous training in humiliation, becomes a star pupil at the school for tropical medicine, is sent to what was then called the Belgian Congo where she becomes an indispensable surgical assistant, has an emotional but strictly Platonic brush with the demanding and non-believing doctor (Finch), is sent back to Belgium against her wishes, and resigns from the order.Several scenes seemed especially instructive. First, the whole business of going through boot camp at the nunnery was an excellent example of initiation rituals as they're found around the world. I won't go into details but being given a new name is a common feature of these rites of passage. Gabrielle van der Mal becomes Sister Luke. In our society we have confirmation names, Hebrew names, and nicknames given during service in the Marine Corps.Second, Hepburn is doing first rate work at the school for tropical medicine. She's intelligent, a nurse, and the daughter of a surgeon. But she's breaking some of the rules as well. She doesn't show enough HUMILIATION, so her superior asks her to fail the final exam as evidence that she's rid herself of the sin of false pride. Let's put it this way -- she's supposed to deprive the community of a skilled nurse with a specialty in tropical medicine to prove her subordination to the church.As capitalism developed, is it any wonder that Reformed Churches arose? The sociologist Max Weber made a convincing argument that it was the overthrow of Catholicism, with its vows of poverty and its denunciation of usury, that made capitalism possible. Not that one cause the other, but that they were concordant in their values. If Catholicism taught that being poor was a virtue, Protestantism taught that industry, thrift, and community work was in the service of God.That's a short and incomplete description of my point but please don't argue with me about it. I know what I'm talking about. I've been poor all my life.This is an exceptional movie in many ways. Audrey Hepburn is quite good as Sister Luke. She was always beautiful in a fey way, never sexy, and it fits the role perfectly because you hardly see anything except her facial features, and they're very expressive. She does a fine job.Peter Finch is good too but it's a common role -- the roguish male who challenges the suppressed female to come out of her shell. Viz., Cary Grant and Joan Fontaine in "Suspicion." Franz Waxman's score is carefully done. In a scene in which an almost unrecognizably young Coleen Dewhurst, as a madwoman, attacks Hepburn, the score is anything but bombastic, only plucked strings. Elsewhere the score is modest and appropriate to the occasion. We hear "ora pro nobis" which, when I was a kid at mass, I always heard as "O, Ropra, No Bis," because, not having had Latin, I couldn't identify junctures.Something has to be said about the cast too. What a lot of winners, including Dame Peggy Ashcroft who went from the wife of the suspicious farmer in "The 39 Steps" to the elderly Mrs. Moore in David Lean's "A Passage to India." And the art direction and set dressing. Nothing was every so clean as the nunnery through which Hepburn passes. Every surface is polished, immaculate, so to speak. Every piece of cloth is spotless and freshly pressed. The barracks in MY boot camp were never so clean.Aside from its rather obvious display of the cultish aspects of belonging to an order, it's a fine film, very tastefully directed by Fred Zinnemann -- so tasteful in fact that it's almost impossible to imagine its being made in today's Hollywood.

tavm After years of reading about this movie, I finally saw The Nun's Story on Netflix disc with my mom who claimed to have seen it before but as the picture went on, she remembered none of it. So she ended up being as fascinated by what was going on in it as I was and told me some pertinent facts about the Catholic faith during some of the movie. Fred Zinnemann made a beautiful but also at times, intense, drama about a young woman's choice in joining the convent and the sacrifices she had to take in doing so. Audrey Hepburn conveys just the right amount of restraint and emotional feeling in her role of becoming Sister Luke having to abandon her earlier identity of Gabrielle. And Franz Waxman does quite a swelling score during most of the picture though the ending scene is all the greater with no score at all. So on that note, The Nun's Story is highly recommended.

writers_reign I'm giving this eight out of ten for Audrey Hepburn who is note perfect as a young woman struggling with her desire to be a nun yet human enough to be fully unable to conquer her vanity, pride, and question the God who demands she suppresses these traits. At the time it was made (shortly after Kathryn Hume published her autobiographical account of her years as a nun) there was no one who could have come within a mile of capturing all the facets of Gabrielle as well as Hepburn or, indeed, could express so many emotions using just her eyes. This isn't to say the support was chopped liver; two Dames were on hand playing sympathetic Mother Superiors - Edith Evans in Belgium, Peggy Ashcroft in the Congo - with the likes of Beatrice Straight and Colleen Dewhirst weighing in with fine cameos and Peter Finch and Dean Jagger well up to snuff as the atheist surgeon in the Congo and the renowned Belgian surgeon who is also Gabrielle's father, respectively. Yet another feather in Hepburn's cap.

richieandsam THE NUN'S STORYI am still going through my quest to watch the classic old films… and that includes as many Audrey Hepburn movies as possible. This is one that I had not heard much about, but knew she was in it.The story is about the daughter of a famous surgeon who becomes a nun and leaves home to enter a convent. Her wish is to go to the Congo and become a surgeon there as she has the same amazing skill as her father. The movie just follows her life as she enters the convent and the problems she has on the way to becoming a nun.The story was good, but it was very slow going. There was not a lot happening as the film concentrated on Sister Luke and her struggles. She makes all the promises to become a nun and becomes well respected, but she is finding it very hard to stick to her vows. There are a few things she is not allowed to do that she is finding hard giving up. On top of all of that, she is put into a few very awkward situations and she doesn't know what is the correct thing to do.The acting was amazing all round. Audrey really played Sister Luke perfectly. I believed she was a nun and through the film even forgot it was Audrey. Peter Finch played Dr. Fortunati, the doctor that Sister Luke works with in the Congo. Peter did a great job and was one of my favourite character Other cast members were Edith Evans, Peggy Ashcroft & Dean Jagger. I can't say anything negative about anybodies performance.There were a couple of moments in the movie that surprised me. The whole film runs along slowly, but smoothly. But then something will happen every now and then that shocked me. It just was not expected, but well received. It shook the film up a bit and made it gripping.This is nowhere near Audrey best movie. She acts as if it was an Oscar performance… but I just don't think the film was anywhere near as good as some of her previous work. This movie was nice, sad and moving. Worth watching, but I don't think I would watch it again.I will give this film 6 out of 10."Dear Lord, forgive me, I cannot obey anymore. What I do from now on is between You and me alone."For more reviews, please like my Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Ordinary-Person-Movie- Reviews/456572047728204?ref=hl