Rejoicing at the ‘Household Saints’ Revival at IFC Center

This Friday, New York City moviegoers can rejoice, for a small, independent film gem from the ’90s, “Household Saints,” is being revived at the IFC Center. Mixing comedy, drama, religious parable, and family saga, the movie is like one of the “miracle sausages” mentioned by its characters; as with those links, it can cure a lot of what ails casual film fans and cineastes alike during these oppressive “Awards Season” months. The opposite of bombastic and patronizing, the 1993 picture revolves around an Italian-American couple and their family, with themes related to faith, fate, and mental health lightly seasoned within. Director Nancy Savoca based her offbeat film on the homonymous novel by Francine Prose, yet personalized the narrative with experiences and details from her childhood growing up in the Bronx with Argentine and Sicilian parents.Beginning with an elderly couple recounting an “old neighborhood” story to their daughters, the filmmakers then situate us within the 1949 heat wave, which one character attributes to the atomic bombs dropped over Japan four years earlier. Little Italy is the setting and four male friends play the card game Pinochle. As luck — or foolishness — would have it, one man bets his daughter Catherine, since he hasn’t much else to offer, and loses. The winner is the local butcher, Joseph Santengelo, and thus begins the tentative-at-first love story between the young man and woman.As one can tell from this description, the movie captures a time when European immigrants still offered up their daughters for marriage, and fathers slapped their daughters when they didn’t cook good meals or balked at the idea of arranged marriages. Indignant, Catherine yells: “What do you think this is — the old country? This is America.” Gradually, though, the walllflowerish Catherine warms to Joseph, a charming rascal who sees Catherine as a virginal, modern-day Madonna (not the singer). The two eventually get married, but before and after they do, the film fills out the story with other charming characters, such as Catherine’s Army veteran brother, Nicky, and Joseph’s disapproving, superstitious, widowed Italian mother, Carmela. The latter, in particular, is a hoot and the late actress Judith Malina seemingly savored every hilarious line she was given.At the first hour mark, when Joseph and Catherine have a baby girl, the movie grows more pensive. The religious undertone that added atmosphere and flavor to the film’s first half starts to take a more central role. As a young girl, their daughter, Teresa, becomes obsessed with the visions and predictions seen and heard by the three children of Fatima, and, later on as a teen, decides to devote her life to the Lord. Furthermore, a subplot involving the alcoholic Nicky explores his particular preoccupation with the opera “Madame Butterfly.”A bit dated as a ’90s indie filmmaking device, arty dream sequences during the movie’s two sections do heighten its irreality and fable-like setting, while complementing its mystical and spiritual themes. Not just rosaries, sausages, and sognos, though, “Household Saints” also includes two disturbing moments involving blood. Curiously, too, its depiction of a pivotal time in America’s recent history, spanning the end of World War II to the 1970s, takes both an idealistic and hard look at how society was changing.Ms. Savoca definitely took a chance in casting comedienne Tracey Ullman as an Italian-American, yet her gamble paid off. The British actress/singer was able to go beyond her talent for accents and mimicry to turn Catherine into a full-fledged character and not just a loveable caricature. Perhaps she was inspired by her co-star Vincent D’Onofrio, who gives a wonderful, magnetic performance as Joseph. Also fantastic is Lili Taylor as the teenage Teresa, her beatific face and hushed voice perfect matches for the character’s saintly aspirations.Ultimately, questions the characters chew on throughout remain unanswered, and audiences may come away disappointed at its almost flippant final scene. It’s to the entertaining film’s credit, though, that its gentle mocking of Catholicism never feels like sacrilege. Indeed, the small miracles and quiet tragedies it depicts seem more like a celebration of belief and tradition than a refutation. Served with great helpings of on-screen wine and genuine affection, the movie’s searching story and spicy sausages go down easily. Saints be praised.

Rejoicing at the ‘Household Saints’ Revival at IFC Center

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