Entertaining Angels: The Dorothy Day Story

...and as good an introduction as I could hope to someone who had to have been a complex person.

I'd only heard of Dorothy Day before I viewed this movie at a Catholic retreat house run by the Redemptorists.

I suspect the producers felt they could go only so far with the subject matter, but they paid attention. The fact that they even tried reflects well on them.

Moira Kelly credibly kept my attention throughout. I could recognize Melinda Dillon, Heather Graham, Brian Keith and Martin Sheen among the other players, but that's not to slight the large cast that truly worked as an ensemble.

I'll doubtless learn more, and plan that by reading Day's autobiography "The Long Loneliness" and her account of the Catholic Worker movement, "Loaves and Fishes".

Any film that inspires me to learn more about its subject earns my respect.

Entertaining Angels goes through the hard life of the converted Catholic Workers Movement leader Dorothy Day, portrayed by the extremely talented Moira Kelly. This movie is great even for people who don't know who Dorothy Day is. This movie is very excellent. If you like this movie you will probably like the Emmy nominated CBS movie Joan of Arc ( Peter O'Toole and Leelee Sobieski), and the Zeffirelli film Brother Sun, Sister Moon.

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.

Helpful to see the life of a person now beatified. Sainthood pending. I suspect the most informative information about her is in the FBI files, from the years she was agitating for the Female vote, and for a Social security underlying our economy. Pretty clear things haven't changed.

The best of this is a view into how the errors she became painfully aware of were removed by the Grace she experienced. "You are no Marxist" is a good line. The movie nowhere mentions Therese of Liseaux who died a few years before Dorothy was born. Dorothy Day wrote the biographies for Therese of the Little Flowers parents. Like others I would like to see the movement clarified in another movie: what happened to the kids who were raised along side the poor.

I liked this film. It tells the real-life story of Dorothy Day, who founded the "Catholic Worker" newspaper and relief agency for the poor in New York City during the Depression. Moira Kelly gives a very good performance as Day. The story follows her quest to find her way in life, ultimately leading to her helping thousands of people and providing a role model for activists.

The film contains a scene where Kelly says one of the most quotable lines ever: "If you feed the poor, you're called a saint. If you ask why they're poor, you're called a Communist." Kelly says this during a scene when she is responding to people who resist her search for the truth through her newspaper. Americans who are concerned with political freedom and justice should keep this statement in mind - it is especially salient today.

That said, there are flaws in "Entertaining Angels." Kelly's performance as the younger Dorothy Day is great, but in the film Day is supposed gradually to look older, and this aging process isn't convincing. Martin Sheen also has a part as a wandering, Christ-like, populist preacher. He's OK here, but his Inspector Clouseau-like French accent won't be on his career retrospective videotape. Also, the film might have bitten off more than it can chew. It could have used a bigger budget and a more professional cast.

Overall, though, this one is well worth a rental. I'm a big Moira Kelly fan, too. I hope she will be around a long time.