Lilies of the Field

Sidney Poitier was the first Black actor to win the Academy Award for Best Actor. The year was 1964. He won the Oscar for his wonderfully engaging performance in the film Lilies of the Field.

Lilies is a small, character-driven comedy-drama about an itinerant handyman named Homer Smith who encounters a group of five Catholic nuns—German nuns who have escaped from behind the Berlin Wall and now live in a remote part of the Arizona desert. Homer stops at their place because his car’s radiator needs some water. In return the nuns ask him to fix the leaky roof in their broken-down farmhouse. For homer, it’s a simple exchange—their water for his labor. But as he quickly learns, nothing is simple when it comes to dealing with Mother Maria, the stern nun who leads the group.

Maria believes that she and the other nuns have been sent to their new home in America with a clear, solemn purpose. God, she says, has told her to build a chapel in the desert where the locals will have a place to worship. So, when Homer Smith shows up—seemingly out of nowhere—she knows with iron will certainty—that God has sent him to help her get the job done.

She relentlessly pushes for him to stay and build her chapel.

Of course, Homer could care less about Maria and her supposed mission from God. He just wants to be paid for his work and be on his way. But Maria will not be swayed. She relentlessly pushes for him to stay and build what she calls her “chapel”. At first, Homer agrees to do a few chores for them. He is charmed by the other nuns and enjoys helping them learn how to speak English. Everything about his relationship with Maria, however, is a tense power struggle. 

But bit by bit, Homer’s resistance to Maria breaks down. Against all odds—and to the amazement of the locals—he starts to lay some bricks for the chapel. When he begins to run out of building materials, it’s Homer’s turn to be amazed when Maria’s belief in prayer starts to deliver all the bricks, lumber and other donations he needs to keep going. At every turn, despite their sharp differences, somehow Homer and Maria begin to persevere in building her “chapel”, no matter what obstacles are thrown in their way.

Some viewers may find that Lilies of the Field occasionally strikes a chord of predictable sentimentality. And despite Poitier’s groundbreaking, leading man performance, others may flinch at the ethnic stereotyping of certain characters.

But despite these possible stumbling blocks, for me the film has a timeless, simple glory to it. I give Lilies of the Field a feel-good three out of four stars. It’s a warm fable about having resilience in the face of adversity and finding joy in contributing and working together, for the good of all.