Aimee Natal

This film is a good story, and you do think more of it once it's ended than you might while watching it. One of the main points is that it is hard to be who you want to be. But it's also hard NOT to be who others think you are. Other than that, it's hard to talk about the actual story without influencing others viewing of it. I saw the film with no knowledge of it other than what was on the back of the video box. That's a good way to go into it. Mr. Gutch (Stephen Rea), the newspaper reporter, isn't who he wants to be. Mrs. Worral, the rich aristocrat who takes the Princess under her wing, isn't who she wants to be. The servants aren't allowed to be anything other than who they are supposed to be. Throughout the film, you see how the Princess inspires others- with jealousy, lust, greed, and also with admiration and love. Good story.

For those unfamiliar with Dorothy Day, having never read any of her writings, this film might seem like a nice one. However, if this is all anyone ever got of the "Dorothy Day Story," they wouldn't really have much of the story. It's a shame, because her writings and life were so interesting, as was her daughter Tamar's. The Catholic Worker Movement, which Day founded, still exists with over 120 communities across the USA. The film is at its best in portraying Day's life in New York City while she lived a "bohemian" life as a reporter, working for a socialist newspaper. It is too shallow in dealing with her conversion to Catholicism, leaving no real explanation for it. If it at least makes some interested in this woman's life, that is to be highly commended. I would recommend reading Day's own autobiography, The Long Lonliness.

This film is about a nun, Sister Helen, and a convict, Poncelet, who's on death row. That and the fact that it is a very good film is surprising, refreshing. It is about much more than just capital punishment- but about poor southern whites, like Poncelet, raised without a loving, responsible father- about the racial divide that still exists, evidenced by Poncelet's bigoted racist speech and Sister Helen's work amongst the poor black children- about the effects of bad company, using drugs and being drunk, which led to the horrid, brutal crimes committed landing Poncelet in prison- and then yes, about death by legal injection as punishment for those who've beaten, raped and murdered. *IF* the film's point was to make the viewers abhor capital punishment, it did not work on me. It almost had the opposite effect. It made me rethink the whole issue. When you see a reenactment (as tastefully done, I think, as it could be) of 2 teens being brutally beaten, the girl raped twice, stabbed, shot in the head, et cetera, and Poncelet staying as callous as he could for years afterward about the whole thing, right up until his date is set for execution, it left me thinking that perhaps capital punishment does indeed fit certain crimes. And I thought for sure the film would have the opposite effect on me, when I first read about it.