Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

This is the second movie about Mother Teresa I've seen in my lifetime, the first being Mother Teresa: In the Name of God's Poor starring Geraldine Chaplin from several years back. This one goes through similar territory concerning her career of helping the poor but also explores her letters that gets discovered by some present-day cardinals. In those letters, she mentions how lonely and depressed she felt during all those years of doing what she always said was God's work though she never expressed that publicly and in fact, wanted those letters destroyed after she passed on not wanting the burden of being thought of as less-than-thankful for her life's work. My mom watched this with me and we both agreed it was another well-made film about a woman who sacrificed so much during her lifetime. So that's a high recommendation of The Letters.

Disclaimer: I was a small investor in this film (I was cold-called about the film 7 years ago when Bill Riead was in the early stages of making the movie, and decided it was a good project). So I have a small financial interest in this movie.I add that I am not catholic (nor even religious), and knew little about mother teresa before I saw this film, so I have no connection to the church, or mother teresa's particular cause.As to the movie, let me start by saying the movie is not a great piece of filmmaking, and has obvious flaws. For example, the narration is stiff and tiresome in places, and the script feels unsophisticated compared to what we're used to these days.ON THE OTHER HAND, despite its flaws, I found the movie to be quite powerful. I think the professional critics have really missed something here. I find it hard to believe that anyone could watch this movie and not be inspired by what this woman did, under the conditions that she did it. If you don't feel like crying at times, then you must have a hard heart. :-) The suffering of those people was off-scale, as was the personal sacrifice of mother teresa, who had to fight to be released from her cush job as a nun/teacher at a fancy girls school, to give her life to the poorest, sickest rejects of society. We should all be more like her.I also want to plug some of the acting: I thought Stevenson was strong (within the limitations of the script), but it was many of the Indian actors (previously unknown to me) who stood out as charismatic and excellent.Bottom line: lower your expectations as to the entertainment value of the film, and go see it for the way it will make you feel. And take your kids -- it's a very good message.

While I am and always have been a huge fan of Mother Teresa and all of her incredible works and accomplishments, I was sorely disappointed in THE LETTERS which is nothing more than "b" movie quality and in no way does Mother Teresa justice. It also pales tremendously in comparison to the 2003 film, MOTHER TERESA OF CALCUTTA, Starring Acting Great, Olivia Hussey, which has become loved by so many. Ms. Hussey captures the very essence and spirit of Mother Teresa. It is nothing less than amazing to watch Ms. Hussey's transformation emotionally, physically and spiritually as she moves through the film. MOTHER TERESA OF CALCUTTA is the ONLY film that is endorsed by the Missionaries of Charity and Mother's only living relative Agi Bijaxiou. PBS plays Mother Teresa of Calcutta frequently as the quality and performances in this film are superior and on point throughout. Unsurprisingly, THE LETTERS is another rip-off disappointment which is so typical of this wanna-be producer/director who seems miserably and embarrassingly incapable of delivering period, much less delivering anything unique and of quality. If you have an interest in Mother Teresa and you want to truly experience her essence to the fullest, pick up a copy of Mother Teresa of Calcutta Starring Olivia Hussey.

What makes a person great? Great accomplishments? Selflessness? Motivation and determination? Not allowing greatness to get in the way of further accomplishments? In the case of Mother Teresa of Calcutta… check, check, check, check. The docudrama "The Letters" (PG, 1:54) portrays a great woman and shows us what made her great, but, almost as importantly, shows us what made her human.The film uses Mother Teresa's own words in the letters she wrote to tell her story in the context of the Catholic Church's process of examining her life for beatification and possible canonization. It turns out that the ethnic Albanian woman who was born Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu, chose to become Sister Teresa and became world famous as Mother Teresa experienced intense loneliness and dealt with long-term doubts about the presence of God in her life. Even so, she managed to become the personification of love, compassion and selfless service and started a worldwide movement to help the disadvantaged.The letters provide the framework for the story when a priest named Benjamin Praggh (Rutger Hauer) travels to India to meet with Mother Teresa's long-time spiritual adviser, the elderly Father Celeste van Exem (Max von Sydow) and discusses her life. Father van Exem quotes from her letters throughout the film and ultimately gives Father Praggh five decades' worth of letters to aid in his investigation. The scenes in which the two priests talk (the weakest moments in an otherwise very strong film) are short, few and far between. This story is mainly told chronologically within extended flashbacks which vividly illustrate why the woman who wrote those letters was such a special and compelling character.Most of the movie focuses on less than seven years in Mother Teresa's nearly seventy-year-long ministry. In 1946, she was happily teaching privileged young Indian girls at the Loreto convent school in eastern Calcutta, but she becomes increasingly burdened by the extreme poverty that she regularly observes down in the streets literally right outside her classroom window. She felt she was honoring God's call to be become a nun at 18, but now she experiences what she describes as "a call within a call" to go into the slums of Calcutta and work to help that city's "poorest of the poor". Gaining permission to work outside the convent walls requires her to make her case to the convent's short-sighted Mother General (Mahabanoo Mody-Kotwal), who forwards it to the convent's priest, then the local bishop, who takes it to the Vatican, where it has to be considered by none other than Pope Pius XII.The granting of Sister Teresa's initial request (for up to one year) was the beginning of the nun's legendary work ministering to, in her words "the hungry, the naked, the homeless, the crippled, the blind, the lepers, all those people who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared for". She started with nothing but her compassion. She wandered the Calcutta slums helping those she came across who would accept her aid. She had to battle the local Hindu population's hesitation to trust an English-speaking woman in the newly independent nation and the animosity from those who were sure that she was there to convert people to Catholicism. She also had to navigate the many rules and restrictions of the Catholic Church and deal with the opposition of some who felt that her apparent calling was contrary to the vows she had taken years earlier. Still, in spite of all this, she persevered and left a lasting legacy."The Letters" is a surprisingly powerful movie. Its particular strength is the performance of British actress Juliet Stevenson in the main role which she embodies with remarkable authenticity – physically, emotionally and spiritually. You don't have to be a spiritual person to appreciate her performance or this film. In the movie, just as in Mother Teresa's life, her faith was the background of her story and the foundation of her work, but her innate goodness as a person is what shines most brightly. The film's sets and script are simple, but they seem appropriate for the simplicity of this story. The portrayal of Mother Teresa's personal and spiritual struggles and triumphs are entertaining, touching and compelling. The real Mother Teresa wanted her letters destroyed upon her death for fear that people would "think more of me and less of Jesus." Either way, her letters have survived to further inspire others – and produce one h*** of a movie. In conclusion, to sum up "The Letters": I have a letter for you: "A".