On Criterion, I watched Household Saints, a 1993 drama directed by Nancy Savoca and co-written by Savoca and Richard Guay, based on the 1981 novel of the same name by Francine Prose. The film centers on three generations of Italian-American women: Carmela Santangelo (Judith Malina), an Old World immigrant woman in New York City who is very superstitious; Catherine Falconetti (Tracey Ullman), a reserved daughter of an Italian immigrant named Lino Falconetti (Victor Argo), who is "won" in a pinocle game bet by the local sausage butcher Joseph Santangelo (Vincent D'Onofrio) and marries her; and Teresa Carmela Santangelo (Lili Taylor), the teenage daughter of Joseph and Catherine who is devoutly Catholic and is looking for miracles and wants to be a Carmelite nun.
The film spans from 1949 to 1970, and tracks how Italian-American culture in New York City can be very insular, very bigoted (the film's characters are racist against Black and Asian people with their attitudes), and following Catholicism to a rigid degree, as an excuse for controlling women's lives and shaming them for anything they do wrong. When Joseph holds Lino's word that he will marry his daughter if he loses (a bet that Lino made while drunk and not serious, and insisting that his daughter is plain and not worth marrying), Joseph tries wooing Catherine, who is skeptical and doesn't want to be married off as if it's the old country, but grows to love Joseph anyway in their marriage. But Carmela hates the Falconettis, openly insults the food that Catherine cooks for them, and is overbearing towards Catherine, criticizing anything she does while pregnant, including instilling fear in her that her baby will born a literal chicken because she witnessed Joseph slaughtering a turkey in his butcher shop.
In 1952, Carmella has passed away, and Joseph and Catherine, while pregnant, read a book debunking old wives' tales about babies and superstitions, to rid their future of that toxic influence Carmela had on them. They have a girl, Teresa (portrayed by Rachael Bella as a child), and raise her in a Catholic school, where she begins to question miracles and expecting the Pope to share news of a supposed letter from the saint Fatima. She sees her uncle Nicky Falconetti (Michael Rispoli) struggling with depression and alcoholism, as he is shamed for being attracted to Asian women and not "sticking to his own kind," then being rejected by Chinese and Japanese women, as well as being verbally abused by his domineering father. His character is a tragic case, of someone expected to stick to narrow rules of Italian masculinity, and not being given the opportunity to break out of it to be happier as himself. Rispoli, a character actor I've always liked from films like Rounders, To Die For, While You Were Sleeping, and Kick Ass, is excellent in this film.
Teresa, as a teenager, wants to be a Carmelite nun, but her father forbids it, seeing nuns as wasting their lives in devotion to "God" but really lining the pope's pockets, and not standing up for themselves, like if they shop at his butchery and don't get the meat they want, and decide it's God's will and don't argue or assert themselves. She goes to a Catholic college to get a teaching degree, and is courted by Leonard Villanova (Michael Imperioli), a fellow student who wants to work in "T.V. law" and talks big about it without knowing that isn't a real thing. He invites Teresa out to have coffee, and as he is talking, Teresa begins to feel like she's having a religious experience, seeing "miracles" all around her of couples and friends and families together, and this experience is all because Leonard is holding her hand. They begin dating, but Teresa, while she is reconsidering her ideas on becoming a nun and being with Leonard, has a hallucinatory experience where she talks to "Jesus" in her home, and her family has to confront her mental health issues and unhealthy devotion to Catholicism.
I hadn't seen this movie since I saw it as a teenager on Bravo in the 1990s, and I really liked it a lot, while noticing a lot I hadn't remembered before, like the first half of the film largely focused on the Italian Old World characters, I mainly remembered the Lili Taylor and Michael Imperioli parts. (This was also the first time I had seen Imperioli in a film, prior to his breakthrough role as Christopher Moltisanti in The Sopranos five years later). I did think it was funny to see D'Onofrio and Taylor play father and daughter when they had played a couple of the same age in Mystic Pizza five years prior, as Ullman and D'Onofrio are only eight years older than Taylor, and Taylor did not look believable as a fourteen-year old in the 1966 scenes.
Although I couldn't stand her character, I really liked Judith Malina's performance as Carmela, in how diabolical she was in breaking the spirit of Catherine in her new marriage and filling her head with worries on how her baby was going to turn out, and Catherine being too polite to lash out at her mother in-law without being shamed for it. Malina was fantastic in this film, coming from her history in co-founding The Living Theatre and being a veteran character actor.
As a third-generation Italian-American who grew up in Long Island and lived in New York City for twenty years, I can unfortunately understand the limited views that the older generations had, though I don't share those views. D'Onofrio as the father giving sarcastic retorts in his New York accent was very close to home, as is the feeling of having to respect your elders even when they're wrong and being shamed for going against them or for getting angry. I'm not in the same generation Savoca is in, so I don't have that same kind of closer relationship to Italian relatives that she has, but I can understand a lot of that Italian-American experience that she shows onscreen. I also grew up Catholic and went to Catholic school for two years, but my family is more secular and relaxed, not treating the Pope like a God or following the conservative attitudes of the church.
I'm glad this film is streaming on Criterion and hasn't fallen into obscurity, it's a really interesting slice of the 1990s independent film boom.
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