Sister Act
                Reviewed by Linda Lopez McAlister
            For The Women's Show, WMNF-FM, Tampa, FL

    I saw two movies about nuns this week--one a masochistic
nightmare of 17th c. Spanish nuns and the other a bit of Disney
fluff.  The only thing they had in common besides the habits was
that in both the convents were in dire financial straits and needed
a miracle to save them.  In the Spanish film "Los Extramuros" the
answer was self-imposed fake stigmata.  In the Disney film Sister
act the answer is Whoopi Goldberg.  Give me Whoopi, any day.

   "Sister Act" is all those things the critics have said about it:
it's formulaic, predictable, with stereotypical characters and a
plot that strains credulity.  And it's what a lot of the critics
didn't say about it: very funny, up-beat, and just the right thing
for a non-sexist, practically non-violent, light summer
entertainment film you can take your kids or your grandparents to.

   You probably already know the plot.  Whoopi Goldberg plays
Deloris van Cartier, a singer in a 5th rate imitation Supremes
singing act in a casino lounge in Reno.  She's the girlfriend of
a mobster (Harvey Keitel) and happens to witness him and his hoods
rubbing out an employee who has talked to the police.  Deloris runs
for her life and goes to the police, where a nice detective (Bill
Nunn)--no pun intended--promises to hide her in a safe place until
the trial occurs.  The safe place he picks is a convent in San
Francisco.  So hip show girl Deloris becomes Sister Mary Clarence
much to the dismay and disapproval of the Mother Superior (Maggie
Smith) who is so austere she would have fit in quite well in the
Spanish nun film.  The first big belly laugh of the film comes when
Sr. Mary Clarence sits down for her first meal with the sisters and
is welcomed by being asked to say grace.  People around me were
laughing so hard I couldn't hear all the words but she throws in
every snatch of solemn language she can think of including "and the
republic for which it stands..."  Clearly Deloris's adjustment to
convent life is going to be a difficult one at best (though she did
go to Catholic school, we learn in a prologue, so she knows enough
about it to make her charade minimally believable to the other
nuns).  The Mother Superior nearly throws her out after she pays a
late night visit to the biker bar across the street and a couple of
the younger nuns follow her.  Deloris asks for and gets another
chance and this time she's assigned to direct the previously god
awful choir for the virtually empty inner city church that convent
is attached to.  You can guess what happens, the songs get jazzed
up, to say the least.  The local street people, attracted to the
music, come in and the nuns go out into the community to minister
to their neighbors. They go on tv.  The miracle has occurred.  But
the happy ending is delayed briefly by the crooks discovering
deloris's hiding place.  Chases ensue.  All ends well, of course.

   The joy in such a film is not in the suspense of the plot--we
all know who wins in such a formula--but in the style and flair
with which the formula is played out. "Sister Act" has style and
flair to burn.  The supporting cast of nuns is superb with Mary
Wickes as the old choir director and Kathy Najimy as the impossibly
upbeat one leading the pack.

   Maybe you have to be a now or former Catholic to really enjoy
this film, but if so the theater was packed with them, laughing
their heads off and having a ball.  Most critics have been lukewarm
about this film, which may add another bit of confirming evidence
the McAlister theory that male critics dislike any film in which a
woman hits a male character in the groin.  Sister Mary Clarence
pulls off a spectacular double reverse shot in this one that gets
her out of a tough spot with the crooks but into trouble with the
movie critics.

   Is this great movie making? No way.  But toe tapping music, wit,
style, and warm good feelings--you bet.  If you want that kind of
entertainment, you'll enjoy "Sister Act."

    For the WMNF Women's Show this is Linda Lopez McAlister on
women and film.