Household Saints (1993)

Based on the novel by Francine Prose, Household Saints is an intimate drama that explores the nature of faith and miracles in the lives of three generations. The older Carmela Santangelo (Judith Malina) takes the Italian grandmother stereotype and darkens it a bit, into a woman soured by her own beliefs and traditions. She rejects her dowdy daughter-in-law, Catherine Falconetti (a miscast Tracey Ullman), who is put upon by her father and betrothed to her husband as a result of a bet in a card game. Rejecting the bitter old woman, Catherine's modernity takes the family into the brightly pastel '60s, as she paints over all the deep reds and replaces the religious symbols with chrome appliances. The spiritual residue left by Carmela is picked up by Catherine's daughter, Teresa (Lili Taylor), an angelic and misunderstood religious fanatic in the '70s. The supernatural events are introduced with a kind of magic realism -- a style used more effectively in the Mexican film of the same year, Like Water for Chocolate. For all the time that passes, the plot somehow drags, and the usually buoyantly funny Ullman is strangely stuck in the unfunny role of Catherine, with very little to do as the story moves away from her. However flawed, this is a film that tenderly questions the presence of miracles and how they have been displaced through time. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide