Excellent, Without a doubt!!

A Masterpiece!

The acting in this movie is really good.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Around 1930 in Belgium, Gabrielle Van Der Mal (Audrey Hepburn) leaves her wealthy family to join the convent. Her surgeon father tries to dissuade her but she aims to be a healer in the Congo. She is given the name Sister Luke as she faces the challenges of her faith in the real world. Her nemesis is her pride. First, she's denied the Congo but eventually, she is assigned there to work under Dr. Fortunati (Peter Finch).Based upon the life of Marie Louise Habets, it was nominated for 8 Oscars winning none. It is certainly detailed in its portrayal of a nun's life. It's the film debut of Colleen Dewhurst in a minor role. Each part is interesting but the movie needs a driving force through the entire story. That is supposed to be her pride but it comes and goes at times. That idea needs some repetitive clarity as a lens to focus her character development. It is sometimes colored with a suggested love story with Fortunati. Her obsession with the Congo needs to be given voice. It would be great if she actually says out loud that she is better than the other nuns. Her struggles with her obedience is generally good. The most compelling scene is the leper colony with real lepers. The Nazi occupation could have been more dramatic although this movie treats it more as an interior struggle. It stops her story short. I understand the concept of stopping at that point but I need to see her life afterwards.

After years of reading about this movie, I finally saw The Nun's Story on Netflix disc with my mom who claimed to have seen it before but as the picture went on, she remembered none of it. So she ended up being as fascinated by what was going on in it as I was and told me some pertinent facts about the Catholic faith during some of the movie. Fred Zinnemann made a beautiful but also at times, intense, drama about a young woman's choice in joining the convent and the sacrifices she had to take in doing so. Audrey Hepburn conveys just the right amount of restraint and emotional feeling in her role of becoming Sister Luke having to abandon her earlier identity of Gabrielle. And Franz Waxman does quite a swelling score during most of the picture though the ending scene is all the greater with no score at all. So on that note, The Nun's Story is highly recommended.

"A tree is known by the fruit that it bears, or a man by his deeds". This quote has been variously attributed to Saint Basil & Jesus sermon on the mount. Whoever or whatever it's original source, no-one can deny its deep meaning & truth. The films directed by Fred Zinnemann attest to his greatness as a movie-maker. "High Noon", "A Man For All Seasons", "The Day Of The Jackal", "Julia" & "The Nun's Story" are all films of the highest quality. Audrey Hepburn must have believed in the serious content & honesty of "The Nun's Story" because she gives easily her finest ever performance as an actress. Gabrielle Van Der Mal (Hepburn) decides as a young woman to become a nun & leave home. Her doctor father (played by Dean Jagger) is terribly upset at losing his most beloved daughter. She is re-named Sister Luke by her convent & eventually serves as a nursing nun in the African Congo. After some years there she contracts tuberculosis. The resident doctor serving there is Dr. Fortunati (Peter Finch) who is both an exceptional doctor & an atheist knows that if he cannot cure her she will have to be sent back home to her Belgian convent. He has come to rely on her tremendously for her nursing skills &, like her father before, hates the thought of losing her. Dr. Fortunati does cure her but she is eventually sent home anyway by the senior nun (Peggy Ashcroft) with a patient for whom only Sister Luke is qualified to tend. Sister Luke is eager to return to Africa but is told by the Mother Superior (Sybil Thorndike) that she must spend some time back in her home convent to renew & refurbish her faith. After meeting her father again for the first time in many years she asks after his welfare. He replies, "Still lonely for you". It is a heart-rending moment but this movie is full of them. Mention must also be made of Franz Waxman's musical score for the film which is just fabulous. When Gabrielle receives her nuns veil to become Sister Luke a glorious crescendo is played like a queen receiving her crown at her coronation ceremony. WW2 has begun & whilst back home in Belgium nazi Germany has conquered & occupied her country. Her father is killed during the furore & her faith has taken a shattering blow. She still believes in god & the Christian faith but she is no longer able to obey the strict rules of her convent & decides she must leave it. The Mother Superior tries hard to dissuade her from going, as does a cardinal, but to no avail. She tells the latter, "Father, if you do not lay my case before his grace (the Pope) i shall do something that will kill me. I shall leave without permission". It doesn't matter whether you are at all religious or not, this is a great movie.

In 1930, in Belgium, Gabrielle van der Mal (Audrey Hepburn) is the stubborn daughter of the prominent surgeon Dr. Pascin Van Der Mal (Dean Jagger) that decides to leave her the upper-class family to enter to a convent, expecting to work in Congo with tropical diseases. She says good-bye to her sisters Louise and Marie; to her brother Pierre; and to her beloved father, and subjects herself to the stringent rules of the retrograde institution, including interior silent and excessive humbleness and humiliation. After a long period working in a mental institution, Gaby is finally assigned to go to Congo, where she works with the Atheist and cynical, but brilliant, Dr. Fortunati (Peter Finch). Sister Luke proves to be very efficient nurse and assistant, and Dr. Fortunati miraculous heals her tuberculosis. Years later, she is ordered to return to Belgium and when her motherland is invaded by the Germans, she learns that her beloved father was murdered by the enemy while he was helping wounded members of the resistance. Sister Luke finally decides to leave the religious life since she is not able to feel neutral against the invaders of her country. "The Nun's Story" is a great film that tells the story of a young woman that decides to enter in a convent accepting all sort of humiliation in the retrograde institution. It is impressive the non-sense attitudes that the novice is submitted, including self-infliction of whipping, absurd silence, fail in an examination and be repressed for an excel work in the hypocrite name of humbleness. This is not vocation but abnormal brainwash of sick persons in the name of the faith. Audrey Hepburn is magnificent, as usual, and this film was nominated to 8 Oscars, 13 wins and 12 other nominations. My vote is eight.Title (Brazil): "Uma Cruz à Beira do Abismo" ("A Cross in the Edge of the Abyss")