Lilies of the Field

Lilies of the Field; drama, USA, 1963; D: Ralph Nelson, S: Sidney Poitier, Lilia Skala, Pamela Branch, Lisa Mann, Isa Crino

Homer Smith, an African-American handyman, stops at a desolate Arizona convent with five nuns to ask for some tap water for his overheated car engine. However, Sister Maria persuades him to stay to fix their rooftop. Homer agrees, but when he demands for his salary, Sister Maria persuades him to sleep over at the convent and start building a small chapel in the back yard. Homer realizes the nuns have no money, as they fled from East Germany to try to find a new life in the US, but only live off the land and animals on their farm. Homer leaves them, but then changes his mind and returns to continue building the chapel. He is helped by the men from the nearby town, including a waiter and a construction worker who gives them bricks and cement. Finally, the chapel is completed, Sister Maria is pleased and Homer leaves in his car.

A gentle and harmless "feel-good" drama with a dash of occasional humor, "Lilies of the Field" is an overall good little independent film with its heart on the right place, yet from today's perspective it hasn't aged that well, and one realizes why it didn't become a classic and is largely forgotten, save for a footnote in film lexicons mentioning the excellent Sidney Poitier who was awarded with several prizes for the role of the kind and noble protagonist Homer Smith, one of the most innocent and philanthropic movie characters of the 60s. The movie has a noble message, but, alas, as it is the case with most of such 'message films', it is not very cinematic. The situations and dialogue is banal or simplistic, without any sequence that truly stands out, whereas the finale feels strangely lukewarm and incomplete, as if something is missing: maybe a better connection between Homer and Sister Maria, or a better conclusion than the plain ending. Neither that well directed nor written, "Lilies" work exclusively thanks to the character of Homer, who basically decides to work at the convent for free out of pity for the German nuns who fled the Communist persecution in East Germany, only to find themselves in an even worse situation in Arizona, where they are broke and barely survive from the food of their desolate farm. Thanks to Homer's actions, a certain level of redemption and salvation is reached, which compensates for the lacking storyline. 

Grade:++