“Entertaining Angels: The Dorothy Day Story” is a faith-based film that will inspire viewers. It successfully makes the point that one individual can make a difference. Moira Kelly is superb as Dorothy Day and gives a multi-faceted performance. In the beginning of the film, she’s an elderly woman in jail, comforting a drug-addict female prisoner who becomes her cell mate. Next the film flashes back in time to when she is a young rebel, a suffragette who works as a reporter when she’s not fighting for a woman’s right to vote. She also has two relationships which produce two children: one whom is aborted and a daughter she raises named Tamara. She is so happy to have a second child, after aborting the first — a decision she regretted — that she begins to visit the local Catholic Church and becomes friends with a nun. Soon, her spiritual hunger grows, and she begins to help the poor and eventually births the Catholic Worker movement.

Day is portrayed as a compassionate woman, helping prostitutes, the hungry and drunks, and lives with them, along with her daughter. The challenges are plenty but, as a reporter friend tells her, she is making people’s lives “more bearable.” One priest says Dorothy has shown them that “Christianity is not just bake sales, Sunday mass, and Friday fish.” A local news story calls Dorothy the “Champion of the Poor.” Due to strong uses of language and sexuality in the film, as well as few scenes of strong violence, we are awarding it for our Faith Based Seal. This inspiring and powerful movie makes it clear: a little faith can go a long way!