A Generational Drama That Mixes Pinochle With Religious Madness

In between her 1991 coming of age movie Dogfight and her work directing the premiere of a police procedural series called Dark Eyes, filmmaker Nancy Savoca decided to grow an extraordinary story from the traditionalistic seeds of her own background. Originally released into theaters on September 15th, 1993 and never made available to the public again after a limited VHS home video run, Household Saints plays like a handed down fable that does have dated extremities in some of its deepest places but still holds bold morals that will stick no matter which generation watches the film.

At the time, Roger Ebert gave it a perfect score and The New York Times included it in their year-end best-of list, but the film nonetheless disappeared until now. Milestone Films is releasing a 30th anniversary restoration of Household Saints, which will debut at the New York Film Festival.

The story begins in the sweltering heat that covers Manhattan’s Little Italy during a 1950s Summer. The winnings of a pinochle game results in an arranged marriage between Tracey Ullman’s Catherine Falconetti and Vincent D’Onofrio’s Joseph Santangelo. These two actors instantly set the stage, cementing the contrasting personalities of a charming, confident butcher and a house-kept daughter who begrudgingly fits into the mold of the missing mother for the family she keeps. Her father lost the card game where he hazily made his bet, leading to Catherine’s courtship and marriage.

Through intimate and introductory dinners that introduce the corresponding families to one another, viewers also come to hastily learn about Joseph’s mother and her overbearing old-world ways. German-born, American actress Judith Malina fits like a glove as Carmela Santangelo, who becomes the harbinger of dysfunctionality in this small, intimate family.

Old Sicilian Traditions Come Into Play

Milestone Films

When she moves in with the more modern Catherine and Joseph, the old Sicilian lady brings a slew of archaic values with her, such as an extremely Catholic lifestyle, saint-based superstitions, and a knowledge of all the possible curses that can come upon a childbearing wife. Carmela’s tendency to always talk to herself about her slighted son’s future while making sausages for dinner are mesmerizing sequences.

This clash of cultures between a newly married couple and the groom’s classically grown grandmother would usually cause an unbearable tension in realistic situations, but Malina’s extraordinary acting and careful performance leaves enough room for some genuine care to be shown. She certainly does not like Catherine’s more modernistic way and more relaxed ways of going about life, but she mostly puts up with everything because this is the same woman that her son is in love with.

Dark Times for the Santangelo Family

Milestone Films

While the uncomfortable aspect of the trio ends up dissolving into an endearing and charming scenario by the end of the first half of Household Saints, the movie attempts to ramp up the thematic subject of dysfunctional families at this turning point by almost instantaneously transforming Catherine’s brother Nicky (who had a fleeting interest in Asian women and culture) into an obsessive, distressed man. This subplot proves to be damning for his conclusion. While his arc is obviously not going to get as much screen time as the main couple, the intended cinematic levity of his traumatizing resolution ends up feeling deflated. Unfortunately, this is not the only shocking shtick that misses the target. Related: Great Movies That Turn 30 This Year

One of the best scenes in this film is when Carmela confronts pregnant Catherine in Joseph’s place of work and scolds her about how the bloody environment of a butcher shop is going to taint the unborn baby. Unfortunately, Carmela’s idioms hold true in this specific case, and a surprising sequence takes place during childbirth that is not for the squeamish. While this scene does give strength to the validity of the old mother’s tales, the unsettling imagery comes out of nowhere and is downright jarring.

Controlled by Extreme Religious Ideologies

Milestone Films

Elsewhere, the more mature storytelling succeeds by introducing the journey of the main couple’s daughter, Teresa, as Household Saints progresses through the 20th century. Defying the trajectory of the family’s modernity, the young girl’s personality and all-around view swings to a much more extreme version of her grandmother. Bringing forth someone who is more concerned about her submissive relationship with Jesus more than anything else, actress Lili Taylor does a fine job of defining a complicated woman.

She’s no less tender than Carmela though, so she never becomes any sort of antagonist. You not only come to feel incredibly bad for someone like her, but in a very interesting spin, start to feel as though the commandeering of little children by religious institutions is the actual villain here. At an early age, Teresa is indoctrinated by the church and convent to an extreme degree.Related: 10 Extremely Traumatized Characters in Movies

Teresa’s Catholicism is one of many ways in which Household Saints mirrors Sicilian culture and the immigrant experience. She’s an almost haunted figure, and seeing her attempt a relationship with Michael Imperoli’s ‘everyman’ type character while still maintaining a relationship with Jesus Christ has a kind of madness that is truly something you just can’t look away from. In what is a must-see last hurrah, Teresa and her father float just above the entrance into her inner mind as they discuss the origins of her parent’s relationship, and how that situation coincidentally connects to her own imaginary card game between her and some otherworldly figures. It’s an unforgettable hallucinatory sequence.

Sometimes Savoca’s film aims too high. At other times, it’s 4downright undecided on how to get to those major moments. Dreamlike sequences are sometimes used to convey how important events are to certain characters, and other times the most realistic and stress-inducing imagery is used as the vehicle for storytelling instead. It’s kind of all over the place. But beneath the misguided long-term tale of the Falconettis and Santangelos, you will find grace and salvation in every one of these characters. . . even if some of them are as troubled as the overall direction of Household Saints.

Household Saints has been digitally restored and remastered by Lightbox Film Center at University of the Arts (Philadelphia) in collaboration with Milestone Films. It will screen at the New York Film Festival Oct. 7 at 12pm and Oct. 11 at 3pm.

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