A Truly Excellent Movie - Lilies Of The Field

[DATo]

I just watched an old movie which I had seen before and thought I would recommend it to you. The title is The Lilies Of The Field and stars Sidney Poitier in a performance which won him the Academy Award for best actor - the first such award ever presented to a male African American.

This is a light-hearted comedy with a few serious overtones which is based upon a true story and whose theme is taken from the title. The movie is very faithful to the novel by William Edmund Barrett which I have also read, the exception being that the novel has a beautiful epilogue which is not included in the movie but its absence in no way detracts from the movie.

In the tradition of It's A Wonderful Life the movie (or book) will leave you with a smile on your face and perhaps a very mild (but acceptable) pang in your heart.


From an International Movie Database review by roarshock ...

If someone were to ask me for the 'perfect' movie, this is the one I would choose. Not 'greatest', not 'best', but something better... an utterly flawless film. It's lean and spare, set in the desert and filmed in B&W. Both the humor and the drama are low-key, but are all the more moving for that, presented without clutter. It uses a small cast to create a rich diversity of characters from different religions, races, and cultures. But these differences aren't what creates the drama, they are simply a wonderful part of the background texture. The conflict lies purely in the clash of personalities between two good people, Homer Smith (Sidney Poitier) and Mother Maria (Lilia Skala), both with their own personal flaws and virtues.

I really can't begin to describe how much I like "Lilies of the Field". It could have been one of those awful preachy 'message' films, but it isn't. It is purely fine story telling. Which isn't to say you can't find meaning in it. Far from it. For me, I've always been taken by how the common human goodness of all the characters is brought out without being dependent on, or sacrificing, their many differences of religion or culture. They remain the same people at the end of the movie as at the beginning, except they're all a bit better, a bit less flawed. And that's pretty close to perfection.

Couldn't have said it better myself.