Memorable, crazy movie

It is a performances centric movie

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

I'm trying to be witty with my title, a double-entendre referring to an audience's "disbelief" in fantastical events, as well as "disbelief" of a person without faith who is trying to understand events through the eyes of the believers.On both counts I'm sorry to say "Thérèse" failed with me. As much as I wanted to, I could not slip into believing these characters were anything more than actors, and I could not slip into believing that there was any great truth about faith & spirituality to be conveyed here.This film is very smooth and polished, much like a Hallmark Channel movie of the week, where everything seems to be straight out of a Filmmaking 101 textbook. From 1985. Everything is so syrupy sweet that, unless you are already primed & into the moment before the film starts, you may find yourself anxiously looking around, wondering if this is some elaborate joke. I'm not kidding: if someone were to dub a laugh track, this would make a funny satire. The script is so corny, and everything is just too perfect to be believable as part of our real world.In no way do I mean this to be a crack at the filmmakers' talents. I'm just saying that this film exists in a bubble of its own. Its beauty is privy to those who live inside the bubble. In that respect, its a lot like a nostalgic old song which only you can appreciate because it has inherent meaning to you (a summer at the beach, a first kiss, etc). But to those outside your nostalgic bubble, the song is just silly... and it probably is.

Thérèse is a feature film that tells the story of Thérèse de Lisieux's life and work, with Lindsay Younce in the title role.It is the first feature film for Leonardo Defilippis, an experienced actor and theatrical director.It tells the story of a young girl who fell in love with Jesus Christ and demonstrated a path of spirituality through the actions of unconditional love, human compassion, and her "Little Way" to the modern world.Thérèse Martin was born in 1873 to a working-class family in France. When she was only four years old, her mother died, sending the child into a cycle of depression. At 14, she experienced a spiritual epiphany and decided to devote her life to God as decided to become a Carmelite nun, and when she was told she was too young, she traveled to the Vatican and personally appealed to the Pope to allow her to join the order. Entering the monastery at a time when winds of intellectual and spiritual change were sweeping the world, Thérèse came to see the simple but sublime life of the nuns as an inspired path to spiritual contentment, and she wrote a powerful book about her religious awakening, The Story of a Soul. Published a year after her tragic death in 1897, Thérèse's autobiography gained widespread acclaim, and the girl known as "the Little Flower" was canonized as a saint in 1925. This is an inspiring true story is told through simple narrative which invites the audience to self-introspection.Also,it allows them to apply such spirituality in their own modern lives.That itself deserves a 10 out of 10 rating.

I am a fan of movies about faith, and will confide that faith and spirituality make great themes, although I prefer Roman Catholic subjects. Here is one par excellence, about The Little Flower, Saint Therese, the newest and youngest Doctor of the Church, acclaimed by the late Pope, Blessed John Paul II. I bought this on DVD at a store, influenced by the cover art which was both gorgeous and sophisticated, so, what a fake out to find the film itself so banal and insipid; it was just barely watchable, just endurable enough to determine if it would remain bad and boring through to the end. Yes, it was bad. Not as bad as "One Night with the King" (2006), about Queen Esther saving the Jews, but that was the worst movie of all time. Be warned, many devout people with good intentions vote on this site and run up the points for bad religious films. I know a score of "5" is fair warning, but both of these films got around "5.8" -- not even close to their just deserts, as the Esther film would only rival this Therese as an unintentional parody of a real movie, whereas Therese's panegyric is too boring even for that. Therese deserves a much better movie than this in English. There are two very good French films about her. You may have to wait a few years for one without subtitles, for those of you folks disinclined to read and watch films simultaneously. Btw, is that a sin? Well, maybe not, but making a mind rotting movie about a great saint ought to be!

This movie was a disappointment after all the hype attributed to it. I was expecting a much deeper portrait of a saint who had such a profound spirituality. Instead the results were mediocre at best, and perhaps didn't event scratch the surface of who this saint really was as a person and Doctor of the Church. Indeed, by the end of the movie, the viewer is left with a sort of cognitive dissonance (aptly written in Steven D. Greydanus's review) as he tries to figure out what exactly made this saint so special that it merited a feature film about her? Instead of really trying to delve into the depths of St. Therese, the movie simply takes exerts out of "Story of a Soul" and tries to literally put them on the screen. So much was treated superficially about St. Therese's spirituality - her "Little Way," the many struggles she went through and how she handled them (including her vocational crises), and the list goes on. Yes, some may say it's a good Catholic movie, but it doesn't extend beyond that paradigm. Certainly the movie does not have the quality to be marketed to the general public (which is a shame because they really could've benefited from St. Therese's spirituality on the heels of a film that did appeal to mass audiences despite it's traditional depictions - The Passion of the Christ)