Xeresa6 Review of Household Saints

Household Saints (1993)

A Charming and Romantic Love Story,but bizarre ending!

[10/10 · 28 May 2006]

The first half of the story charmed me. I'm a Vincent D'Onofrio fan and this brought out the best parts of his acting throughout the movie. He never struck a false note and was totally believable. Tracy Ullman was also first-rate as the puzzled object of Joseph Santangelo's affections. The only flaw in the ointment in the first half was Joseph Santangelo's ignorant, half-mad mother,Carmela, who tries to sabotage Joseph's courtship and later his marriage to the vulnerable Cathrine. Judith Malina played the mother-in-law with a superstitious viciousness that made me want to give her the evil eye! I also must praise the acting of Michael Rispoli as Nicky Falconetti, a troubled and sensitive soul, yearning to have a great love in his life and fixated on the opera Madam Butterfly. His gradual descent into alcoholism and suicidal despair is heart-breaking. The second half of the movie adds a discordant note to what was up to then a beautiful love story. Joseph and Cathrine's daughter has obviously inherited the schizophrenic tendencies of her late grandmother. A clue is given when Cathrine sees her daughter ending her hunger strike in the kitchen and has a momentary image of her mother-in-law Carmela standing at the stove where her daughter should be. Her grandmother Carmela use to see her dead husband Vincenzo speaking to her in her living room, while young Teresa ends up desiring a saint's crown of martyrdom and ultimately sees a vision of Jesus in her living room Vincent D'Onofrio and Tracy Ullman are completely believable as the worried and unhappy parents trying to cope with an increasingly disturbed only child. They made the transition from young lovers to devoted, middle-aged couple credible, and their scenes with their daughter in the mental hospital and later at the funeral seemed so vividly real. Vincent D'Onofrio was especially moving in these scenes! The ending scene with the older couple(who are they suppose to be?) who were supposedly telling the story about Joseph,Cathrine, and Teresa made no sense to me as one of the kids knocks over a drink and they remove the picnic tablecloth to cut off the view from the camera. That was really dumb symbolism on somebody's part!