WATCH THE TRAILER HERE
First, the Recap:
Selfless faith. Deep and abiding belief in what you are to accomplish and then having the moral fortitude and conviction to stand up and obey the calling you sense in your heart from a power so much greater than yourself. To see the need of a people and long to help them with such unconditional love, that not to go to their aid would hurt even more than seeing their suffering right in front of you. For teacher and nun Sister Teresa (Juliet Stevenson) living out of the Loreto convent in Calcutta, India circa 1946, the plight of those in the streets within view of the convent alone strikes her heart with such a profound sense of the distress represented.
Then, on a train to an annual retreat in Darjeeling, “a call within the call” from God upon her heart causes Sister Teresa to petition her superiors within the Catholic Church to allow her to leave the convent and both live among and minster to the “poorest of the poor” in Calcutta’s slums. Despite those who wanted to bar her actions, Sister Teresa is finally given the permission in 1948 to do the work she feels called to, and thus begins a 50+ year journey, teaching poor children to read and write on the streets of Calcutta while learning and then administering medical aid and comfort to those in need during the famine and violence ravaging the city. But in such compassionate giving of herself, the spiritual and physical tolls arise.
Next, my Mind:
Writer/Producer/Director William Riead’s “The Letters” reveals this story of one of the greatest humanitarians the world has even known from the perspective she shared via letters to her spiritual adviser, Celeste van Exem (played by Max Von Sydow), who recounts said efforts to a colleague Benjamin Praagh (played by Rutger Hauer). And it is this “looking back” approach that adds some serious weight to the overall execution of the narrative, as it brings the sense of how what she wrote to van Exem, including her feelings of abandonment by God and a deep loneliness she experienced, affected him in later years and hence how he ultimately shared about it with Praagh while he was looking into her work.
Lead Juliet Stevenson is truly amazing and transformative in portraying the character throughout such a large span of time, and embodying all the emotional turmoil Mother Teresa experienced while doing what God called her to do. From having to face the seriousness of the conditions in Calcutta slums for the first time, to the oppression she endured from Hindus, to the incredible impact she had on children and so many others under her care, through ultimately establishing of the Missionaries of Charity, Stevenson encapsulates it all to superb effect. Strong supporting turns by Von Sydow, Hauer, Priya Darshini, Kranti Redkar, and others only serves to enhance and emotionally charge the story even more, plus the depictions of Calcutta at that time are simply heartbreaking.
In total, “The Letters” stands as yet another film so necessary in this current time. To see one person not just “kind of” decide to do something, but rather have the patience to obey the calling on their heart so completely, be willing to stand firm in adversity, and have a perseverance and presence of mind to know it is all to see lives changed for the better–it these acts of genuine, absolute compassion so desperately needed today.
As always, this is all for your consideration and comment. Until next time, thank you for reading!
