Manna from Heaven | |
---|---|
Directed by | Gabrielle Burton Maria Burton |
Written by | Gabrielle B. Burton |
Produced by | Gabrielle Burton Charity Burton Ursula Burton |
Starring | Maria Burton Ursula Burton Seymour Cassel Shelley Duvall Jill Eikenberry Louise Fletcher Frank Gorshin Harry Groener Shirley Jones Cloris Leachman Wendie Malick Austin Pendleton Cameron Watson |
Cinematography | Ed Slattery |
Edited by | Andy Peterson Robert Tate Mattie Valentine |
Music by | Timothy Jones James T. Sale |
Production company | Five Sisters Productions |
Release date |
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Running time | 119 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Box office | $505,675 (USA) |
Manna from Heaven is a 2002 American religious comedy film written by Gabrielle B. Burton and co-directed by her daughters Gabrielle C. Burton and Maria Burton. The film won awards at four film festivals. [1] It was actor Jerry Orbach's final film before his death from prostate cancer in 2004 and Shelley Duvall's last film prior to her return to acting in 2022.
Manna From Heaven is a comedic fable about what happens when you get a gift from God (a financial windfall), but many years later, you find out that it was a just a loan and it is due immediately.
Once upon a time, many years ago, a neighborhood in Buffalo, NY, is mysteriously showered with 20-dollar bills. Theresa, a young girl who everyone thinks is a saint, doesn't have much trouble with convincing her loose-knit "family" that the money is a gift from Heaven. Years later, Theresa, who has become a nun, has an epiphany that it is time to pay the money back, so she calls the eccentric group together to repay the "loan".
The problem is … nobody wants to give back the money, nobody has the money, they don't know to whom it belongs, and most of them cannot stand each other.
Along the way, the characters learn about family, romance, reconciliation and redemption, and by working together they begin to realize their full potential.
Dave Kehr of The New York Times liked the film overall:
A product neither of Hollywood nor the New York-Sundance indie axis, Manna From Heaven is a true outsider film, and while it would be easy to fault its lack of technical polish, somewhat discursive script and uneven performances, it is also refreshingly sincere, gentle and good-natured. [2]
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Gabrielle Burton was an American feminist novelist and screenwriter.
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Gabrielle C. Burton is an American director, producer and actor best known for her film, Kings, Queens and In-Betweens, a 2017 documentary about gender as looked at through the lens of drag queens, kings, and transgender performers in Columbus, Ohio, which had its world premiere at the Cleveland International Film Festival. She often works with her sisters, Maria Burton, Jennifer Burton, Ursula Burton and Charity Burton through their Five Sisters Productions company. She wrote and starred in Temps, and co-directed Manna From Heaven. Burton won an artist residency from the Wexner Center for the Arts to make a new film, a documentary on gender and parenting called Drag Queens Made Me a Better Parent, inspired by her TEDx talk.
Five Sisters Productions is a production company helmed by the five Burton sisters, Maria Burton, Jennifer Burton, Ursula Burton, Gabrielle Burton and Charity Burton. Their films include Just Friends (1997), Temps (1999), Manna From Heaven (2002), Julia Sweeney's Letting Go of God (2008), Kings, Queens and In-Betweens (2017) and Good Eggs (2018). The New York Times called Manna From Heaven "a true outsider film," which is "refreshingly sincere, gentle and good-natured."
Shelley Duvall was an American actress who began her career in 1970, appearing in Robert Altman's Brewster McCloud. She went on to have roles in numerous films by Altman throughout the 1970s, including the period Western film McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971), the crime drama Thieves Like Us (1974), the ensemble musical comedy Nashville (1975), and the Western Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson (1976). Duvall also had a minor role in Woody Allen's Annie Hall (1977). Her performance in Altman's subsequent psychological thriller 3 Women (1977) won her the Best Actress Award at the 1977 Cannes Film Festival, a Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award, as well as a BAFTA Award nomination in the same category.