Sister Mary Explains It All

Last updated
Sister Mary Explains It All
Sister Mary Explains It All.jpg
Film poster
Genre Comedy Drama
Written by Christopher Durang
Directed by Marshall Brickman
Starring Diane Keaton
Brian Benben
Wallace Langham
Laura San Giacomo
Jennifer Tilly
Country of originUnited States
Original languageEnglish
Production
ProducerRonald M. Bozman
Cinematography Anthony B. Richmond
EditorKristina Boden
Running time76 minutes
Production companyTennant/Stambler Productions
Original release
Network Showtime
ReleaseMay 27, 2001 (2001-05-27)

Sister Mary Explains It All is a 2001 satirical dark comedy film written by Christopher Durang and directed by Marshall Brickman. The film, based upon Durang's 1979 play Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You , and starring Diane Keaton in the title role, premiered on the Showtime network.

Contents

Background

The project was filmed in Toronto in association with Columbia TriStar Television. [1] The theme was originally covered in Christopher Durang's controversial 1979 stage play. In updating the character of Sister Mary, Durang read through 15 earlier drafts of the screenplay and discussed changes with Brickman and the producers. [2] The original film title was Sister Mary, but Durang felt the proffered title was too generic, preferring the original theatrical title. [3] For the film, Keaton was Brickman's choice for the role, which was cast against type, and she accepted the part because she thought she couldn't do it. [4]

The Catholic League objected to the depiction of Catholicism in the film and took out a full-page advertisement in Variety to protest its broadcast. [5] [6] William A. Donohue, the president of the Catholic League, called for a boycott of Viacom, Showtime's parent company. [7]

Plot

Sister Mary (Diane Keaton) is an authoritarian Catholic nun who teaches children. Her teaching is heavily influenced by her fanatical beliefs. Four of her former pupils, Gary (Brian Benben), Aloysius (Wallace Langham), Angela (Laura San Giacomo) and Philomena (Jennifer Tilly), return to the school to show her how deeply her strict views on faith and sin have affected their lives. [8]

Partial cast

Critical reception

Steven Oxman of Variety wrote "Satire tends to date quickly, but Christopher Durang's 1980 black comedy criticizing Catholic rigidity, Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You, still has some bite to it, which says a lot about the writer's incisive wit". He noted that the film did not have the same theatricality of Durang's initial work, and that with the original stageplay constructed for the audience's participation, the film included actors as representing broad characterizations of the play's audiences. Oxman concluded that the film might have perhaps remained truer to the original play had Sister Mary delivered her lecture directly to her unseen television audience. [1]

Recognition

Max Morrow received a 2002 Young Artist Award nomination for "Best Performance in a TV Movie or Special — Supporting Young Actor" for his role of Thomas.

Related Research Articles

<i>Annie Hall</i> 1977 film by Woody Allen

Annie Hall is a 1977 American satirical romantic comedy-drama film directed by Woody Allen from a screenplay written by Allen and Marshall Brickman, and produced by Allen's manager, Charles H. Joffe. The film stars Allen as Alvy Singer, who tries to figure out the reasons for the failure of his relationship with the eponymous female lead, played by Diane Keaton in a role written specifically for her.

<i>Manhattan</i> (1979 film) 1979 film by Woody Allen

Manhattan is a 1979 American romantic comedy-drama film directed by Woody Allen and produced by Charles H. Joffe from a screenplay written by Allen and Marshall Brickman. Allen co-stars as a twice-divorced 42-year-old comedy writer who dates a 17-year-old girl but falls in love with his best friend's mistress. Meryl Streep and Anne Byrne also star.

Christopher Ferdinand Durang was an American playwright known for works of outrageous and often absurd comedy. His work was especially popular in the 1980s, though his career seemed to get a second wind in the late 1990s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Diane Keaton</span> American film actress (born 1946)

Diane Keaton is an American actress. She has received various accolades throughout her career spanning over five decades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, and two Golden Globe Awards, in addition to nominations for a Tony Award and two Emmy Awards. She was honored with the Film Society of Lincoln Center Gala Tribute in 2007 and an AFI Life Achievement Award in 2017.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">CBS Studios</span> American television production company

CBS Studios, Inc. is an American television production company which is a subsidiary of the CBS Entertainment Group unit of Paramount Global. It was formed on January 17, 2006, by CBS Corporation as CBS Paramount (Network) Television, as a renaming of the original incarnation of the Paramount Television studio.

<i>Manhattan Murder Mystery</i> 1993 film by Woody Allen

Manhattan Murder Mystery is a 1993 American black comedy mystery film directed by Woody Allen, which he wrote with Marshall Brickman, and starring Allen, Alan Alda, Anjelica Huston, and Diane Keaton. The film centers on a married couple's investigation of the death of their neighbor's wife.

Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You is a play by Christopher Durang.

Marshall Brickman is an American screenwriter and director, best known for his collaborations with Woody Allen, with whom he shared the 1977 Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Annie Hall. He was previously the head writer for Johnny Carson, writing scripts for recurring characters such as Carnac the Magnificent. He is also known for playing the banjo with Eric Weissberg in the 1960s, and for a series of comical parodies published in The New Yorker.

<i>Baby Boom</i> (film) 1987 film by Charles Shyer

Baby Boom is a 1987 American romantic comedy-drama film directed by Charles Shyer, written by Nancy Meyers and Shyer, and produced by Meyers and Bruce A. Block for United Artists. It stars Diane Keaton as a yuppie who discovers that a long-lost cousin has died, leaving her a fourteen-month-old baby girl as inheritance.

<i>Bobbies Girl</i> 2002 Irish television film

Bobbie's Girl is a 2002 Irish comedy-drama television film directed by Jeremy Kagan and starring Bernadette Peters, Rachel Ward, Jonathan Silverman, and Thomas Sangster. The plot is about two women leading a comfortable, quiet life running a pub in Dublin who are suddenly confronted with a series of health and family crises.

The Nature and Purpose of the Universe is a play written by Christopher Durang, first produced in 1975. The work is an absurdist comedy concerning the irony of Catholic dogma, a theme visited in other Durang plays, including Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You, Laughing Wild, and The Marriage of Bette and Boo. Nature and Purpose deals primarily with an unhappy housewife's religious faith being tested by nightmarish circumstances which church dogma teaches she must willingly endure.

<i>Looking for Mr. Goodbar</i> (film) 1977 film by Richard Brooks

Looking for Mr. Goodbar is a 1977 American crime drama film, based on Judith Rossner's best-selling 1975 novel of the same name, which was inspired by the 1973 murder of New York City schoolteacher Roseann Quinn. The film was written and directed by Richard Brooks, and stars Diane Keaton, Tuesday Weld, William Atherton, Richard Kiley, and Richard Gere.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George I. Lovatt Sr.</span> American architect

George I. Lovatt Sr. was an American architect who designed numerous Roman Catholic churches in Eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and elsewhere during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Oracle Productions was a Chicago, Illinois based theatre company founded in 2001. Oracle moved into a storefront space at 3809 N Broadway in June 2006. In 2010 Oracle moved to a theater model dubbed "Public Access Theatre". Their "store front" style influenced the first shop front theatre of the UK. Oracle ceased operations at the end of 2016 citing personal changes for their Executive Producer and Director.

Miss Witherspoon is a play written by Christopher Durang. It was one of three finalists for the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The play, a black comedy, was named one of the Ten Best Plays of 2005 by Time Magazine and Newsday.

<i>Philomena</i> (film) 2013 film

Philomena is a 2013 drama film directed by Stephen Frears, based on the 2009 book The Lost Child of Philomena Lee by journalist Martin Sixsmith. The film stars Judi Dench as Philomena Lee, an elderly woman who has been searching for her son for 50 years, and Sixsmith's efforts to help her find him.

Michael Anthony Hess was an Irish-born American lawyer, deputy chief legal counsel and later chief legal counsel to the Republican National Committee (RNC) in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Sister Mary may refer to:

<i>Book Club</i> (film) 2018 film by Bill Holderman and Erin Simms

Book Club is a 2018 American romantic comedy film directed by Bill Holderman, who co-wrote the screenplay with Erin Simms. The film stars Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Candice Bergen, and Mary Steenburgen as four friends who read Fifty Shades of Grey as part of their monthly book club, and subsequently begin to change how they view their personal relationships.

A Girl Thing is a 2001 American made-for-television drama directed by Lee Rose. Consisting of four separate stories, the film premiered on Showtime on January 20, 2001, and concluded on January 27. The ensemble cast includes Stockard Channing, Kate Capshaw, Elle Macpherson, Glenne Headly, Rebecca De Mornay, Allison Janney, Mia Farrow, Lynn Whitfield, Linda Hamilton, Camryn Manheim, and S. Epatha Merkerson.

References

  1. 1 2 Oxman, Steven (24 May 2001). "Sister Mary Explains It All". Variety . Retrieved 30 July 2018.
  2. King, Susan (27 May 2001). "Cover Story; Taught by 'Sister Mary'". Los Angeles Times . Archived from the original on January 31, 2013. Retrieved 16 January 2010.
  3. Baron, James; Susan Saulny; Linda Lee (16 May 2001). "Boldface Names". New York Times . Retrieved 16 January 2010.
  4. Lee, Luaine (22 May 2001). "Keaton's Leap: Actress agreed to start in controversial 'Sister Mary' because she felt she couldn't do it". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette . Retrieved 16 January 2010. ... I knew that that was a part I could never do ... it's really a tour-de-force thing that you would imagine you'd see on stage. And it's really not what I'm good at.
  5. Henerson, Evan (27 May 2001). "OH, 'SISTER' SHOWTIME FILM VERSION OF CONTROVERSIAL COMEDY EXPLAINS IT AGAIN, ONCE AND FOR ALL". Los Angeles Daily News. Archived from the original on 2 November 2012. Retrieved 19 January 2010.
  6. "Viacom: First in Catholic-bashing broadcasting". Press release. Catholic League. August 20, 2002. Retrieved 16 January 2010.
  7. "Boycott of Showtime launched". Press release. Catholic League. May 23, 2001. Retrieved 16 January 2010.
  8. James, Caryn (2012). "Sister Mary Explains It All (2001)". Movies & TV Dept. The New York Times . Baseline & All Movie Guide. Archived from the original on 26 October 2012. Retrieved 16 January 2010.