Sometimes films get made because they are a “passion project” of the filmmakers. Not often, however, has a film been labeled a “love letter.” Even less so, a “love letter” to Catholic religious sisters. Such is The Hail Mary, writer/director Daniel Roebuck’s love letter to the sisters he has encountered on his journey of life and who shaped him into the man he is today.
I’m not a huge football fan, so when I heard about another football movie, I groaned. The Hail Mary, however, boasts a plotline that transcends football, and the metaphor of a “Hail Mary” play applies to the numerous characters who are given a “Hail Mary” second chance.
The film focuses on Jake Bauer (Roebuck), a man struggling with a drinking problem who works at a plumbing company. His boss, Mr. Russel (James Black), has run out of patience with him, regardless of the fact that Jake is so good he can fix just about anything. When he’s fired, there just happens to be a couple of nuns in the lobby, hoping to get the ancient, always-on-the-blink heating system at their school fixed. There’s just one problem, they owe Mr. Russel from previous jobs. Overhearing Russel fire Jake, Sister Kathy (Marsha Dietlein) reaches out to Jake and offers him a job at The Mary Immaculate Center, a boarding school for boys. It is run by her and her fellow sisters.
As Jake takes up his handyman job, his new boss continuously tries to convert him, quoting Jesus left and right, even though he protests at every turn, saying “God’s not really my deal. He ain’t never around when you need him.” He and Sister Kathy are well matched. As they throw harmless barbs at each other, they gradually start to like each other despite their best efforts not to. When Jake witnesses the resident monks, Father Michael Anthony (Timothy E. Goodwin) and Father Anthony Michael (Bret Anthony), trying to get a football team started with no experience, he intervenes. It is only when he begins living for someone other than himself, that the path of redemption opens before him.
The Hail Mary has comedic chops that rely predominantly on the interplay between Roebuck and Dietlein, but also on stereotypes of nuns who seem to know little of the world, dedicated though they may be. For example, there’s the novice, Sister Veronica (Meghan Maddigan) who’s unusually attached to a music box, a gift, although this leads to one of the most moving scenes in the film. The priests become Jake’s sidekicks, much like Friar Tuck is to Robin Hood. It’s not necessarily the most flattering portrait of religious, but the sisters are so dedicated, relatable, and compassionate that the stereotype may be excused.
What shines through most in the film is the compassion and dedication of the sisters and priests to their charges, the “lost boys” (and one fish-out-of-water girl) of Mary Immaculate. When first meeting Jake, Sister Kathy comments that he’s “just as lost as the boys.” Anyone who works with a non-profit knows that raisiing the needed funds can be overwhelming. Sister Kathy knows this from personal experience, but she does not let it dampen her love for her charges, young and not-as-young. Would that we all could be guilty of “selling hope” as Jake accuses Sister Kathy, even as he opens himself to the hope she and her sisters are selling.
The Hail Mary opens nationwide on February 27th.