''Household Saints'' is a 1993 film starring

Tracey Ullman Tracey Ullman (born Trace Ullman, 30 December 1959) is a British-American actress, comedian, singer, writer, producer, and director. Her earliest mainstream appearances were on British television sketch comedy shows '' A Kick Up the Eighties'' ( ...

Vincent D'Onofrio Vincent Philip D'Onofrio (; born June 30, 1959) is an American actor and filmmaker. He is known for his supporting and leading roles in both film and television. He has been nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award. His roles include Private Leonar ...

and

Lili Taylor Lili Anne Taylor (born February 20, 1967) is an American actress. She came to prominence with supporting parts in the films ''Mystic Pizza'' (1988) and '' Say Anything...'' (1989), before establishing herself as one of the key figures of 1990s i ...

. It is based on the novel by

Francine Prose Francine Prose (born April 1, 1947) is an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and critic. She is a visiting professor of literature at Bard College, and was formerly president of PEN American Center. Life and career Born in Brookl ...

and directed by

Nancy Savoca Nancy Laura Savoca (born July 23, 1959) is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. Early life and education Nancy Laura Savoca was born in 1959 in the Bronx, New York, to Argentine and Sicilian immigrants Maria Elvira and Carlos S ...

. The film explores the lives of three generations of

Italian-American Italian Americans ( it, italoamericani or ''italo-americani'', ) are Americans who have full or partial Italian ancestry. The largest concentrations of Italian Americans are in the urban Northeast and industrial Midwestern metropolitan areas, ...

women over the course of the latter half of the 20th century. The film's executive producer is Jonathan Demme, a long-time friend of Savoca's, and her first real employer in the world of film.

Plot

The film follows the courtship and marriage of Catherine Falconetti to local butcher Joseph Santangelo, as well as Catherine's relationship with her overbearing Old World mother-in-law, Carmela. The film also focuses on Catherine and Joseph's daughter Teresa, a devout

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

more similar to her superstitious grandmother than her modernized and secularized parents. As a child and young adult, Terersa puts herself through a series of trials so that she might one day be

canonized Canonization is the declaration of a deceased person as an officially recognized saint, specifically, the official act of a Christian communion declaring a person worthy of public veneration and entering their name in the canon catalogue of s ...

as a saint. Teresa's teenage fantasy to become a

nun A nun is a woman who vows to dedicate her life to religious service, typically living under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience in the enclosure of a monastery or convent.''The Oxford English Dictionary'', vol. X, page 599. The term is o ...

is strained after starting a relationship with a marriage-minded young man. The film explores both family dynamics over the course of time as well as, on a larger level, the relationship between religious faith in miracles and modernity.

Cast

as Catherine Falconetti *

as Joseph Santangelo *

as Teresa Carmela Santangelo **

Rachael Bella Rachael Bella Zvagelsky (née Kneeland, born March 13, 1984) known professionally as Rachael Bella, is an American retired actress. Career Bella is best known for her role as Becca Kotler in the movie '' The Ring''. She has also appeared in oth ...

as young Teresa *

Judith Malina Judith Malina (June 4, 1926 – April 10, 2015) was a German-born American actress, director and writer. With her husband, Julian Beck, Malina co-founded The Living Theatre, a radical political theatre troupe that rose to prominence in New York C ...

as Carmela Santangelo *

Michael Rispoli Michael Rispoli is an American character actor. He was a contender for the role of Tony Soprano in the HBO television series ''The Sopranos,'' but was ultimately cast as Jackie Aprile, a recurring character in the show’s first season. Ris ...

as Nicky Falconetti *

Victor Argo Victor Argo (November 5, 1934 – April 7, 2004) was an American actor of Puerto Rican descent who usually played the part of a tough bad guy in his movies. He had a career span of forty years. He is best known for '' Mean Streets'' (1973), ...

as Lino Falconetti *

Michael Imperioli Michael Imperioli (born March 26, 1966) is an American actor, writer, and musician. He is best known for his role as Christopher Moltisanti in the HBO crime drama ''The Sopranos'' (1999–2007), which earned him the Primetime Emmy Award for Ou ...

as Leonard Villanova * Ileana Douglas as Evelyn Santangelo *

Joe Grifasi Joseph G. Grifasi (born June 14, 1944) is an American character actor of film, stage and television. Grifasi was born in Buffalo, New York, the son of Patricia (née Gaglione) and Joseph J. Grifasi, a skilled laborer. Grifasi graduated from Bi ...

as Frank Manzone

Production

Nancy Savoca cast many favorite

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

actors for the film which was shot in DeLaurentis/Carolco (now EUE Screen Gems) Studios in

Wilmington, North Carolina Wilmington is a port city in and the county seat of New Hanover County in coastal southeastern North Carolina, United States. With a population of 115,451 at the 2020 census, it is the eighth most populous city in the state. Wilmington is t ...

. The film reunited Lili Taylor with Savoca, with whom she'd previously worked on ''

Dogfight A dogfight, or dog fight, is an aerial battle between fighter aircraft conducted at close range. Dogfighting first occurred in Mexico in 1913, shortly after the invention of the airplane. Until at least 1992, it was a component in every majo ...

,'' and Vincent D'Onofrio, with whom she'd appeared in 1988's '' Mystic Pizza.'' Tracey Ullman and Vincent D'Onofrio, as Lili Taylor's screen parents, are only eight years older than she is.

Reception

Critical reception

On review aggregator

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, ''Household Saints'' has an approval rating of 54% based on 13 reviews. Roger Ebert gave the film four out of four stars and called it a "warm-hearted jewel of a movie" with many scenes that rang true to his Catholic upbringing. He added Savoca "wants to show how, in only three generations, an Italian family that is comfortable with the mystical turns into an American family that is threatened by it. And she wants to explore the possibilities of sainthood in these secular days. That she sees great humor in her subject is perfect; it is always easier to find the truth through laughter."

Accolades

The film made ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

Best Films of 1993 list. It was nominated for a

Independent Spirit Award for Best Screenplay Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independen ...

by Nancy Savoca and Richard Guay. Lili Taylor won an Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Female.

Home media

Although the film was met with critical success on release, it has only been released on VHS and has yet to be released on

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...

References

External links

* * * * {{Nancy Savoca 1993 films 1993 comedy films American comedy films Films about Catholicism Films shot in North Carolina Films based on American novels Films directed by Nancy Savoca 1993 independent films American independent films 1990s English-language films 1990s American films Films about Italian-American culture Films about mother–daughter relationships Films set in the 1950s Films set in the 1970s Films set in New York City Films set in the Bronx