Sister Aimee: The Aimee Semple McPherson Story DVD Review

Sister Aimee: The Aimee Semple McPherson Story
Review By: Kelsey Zukowski
Starring: Mimi Michaels, Charles Hoyes, Richard Rossi, Chad Nadolski, Michael Minor
Written & Directed By: Richard Rossi
Release date: 4/22/2008
Grade: B

Aimee Semple McPhearson was an evangelist during the early 1900’s. she prayed for the healing of over 300,000 people and helped feed 1 million of those in need during the trying times of The Great Depression. She was the first woman who started her own denomination, The International Church of the Foursquare Gospel. She did all of this when no one thought she could as it was a field largely dominated by men. Sister Aimee is the story of Aimee Semple McPherson’s life. It is about the struggles, confusion, and love that she experienced.

When Aimee (Michaels) was young she grew up in a very religious family. She began to have many doubts about her faith. In school Aimee learned about evolution. With the lack of evidence of religion and God, it seemed like it was illogical to believe in it. Her parents freak out about this, they can’t imagine bringing someone in to the world who would go against God by not believing. After going to a church ceremony, Aimee feels that she sees God. She becomes a believer again. This feels so good to her that she wants nothing more than to spread the word and save other people in the way she was. Aimee than marries a missionary and heads off to China with her new husband. They were very much in love and had the same morals that drove them. Unfortunately, they weren’t able to keep this feeling alive for very long. He became ill and passed away. Aimee headed back to New York to join the Salvation Army with her daughter, Roberta.

It is not long before Aimee gets in to another relationship, this time with a man named Robert (Nadolski). How ever problems arise as he realizes that she is still in love with her dead ex-husband. This is when Aimee proclaims that she wants to become a preacher. Robert doesn’t support this and they go their separate ways since he feels that Aimee cares more about strangers than she does for him. By 1923, Aimee is in Los Angeles as a representative of God. She becomes the healer. Reports are constantly confirmed that she has cured person after person. Everyone in need flees to Aimee in hopes of a miracle and they all get their miracle. In 1926 she begins a radio broadcast so she can reach more people. This is where her and a radio deejay, Kenneth Ormiston (Minor) fall for one another. Right after this point crisis hits. For many years Aimee has been making progress, but she is promising away money before there is even any money to speak of. This puts her in a very bad position as hardly any donations are being made, making it very hard for Aimee to continue with her efforts. One day while Aimee and a friend were at the beach, she seemingly vanished. It was assumed that she drowned but her body hadn’t been found.

Mimi Michaels brings Aimee Semple McPherson to life vividly. There is so much to her character and Michaels gives her a rebirth. She deals all of the emotion brilliantly, with this very complex character who had gone through a lot and was just trying to find happiness for her as well as others. Richard Rossi did very well acting in this as one of the many men in Aimee’s life. It is clear that in the making of this movie he was essentially the god. He imagined it, created it, and portrayed elements of Aimee’s life. Charles Hoyes, Chad Nadolski, and Michael Minor did very well and served as a contrast of Aimee’s character and at times many of them were seen as keeping Aimee back from what she was destined for.

The style of the movie seemed very authentic. Being a lower budget, independent film actually worked in its’ favor. It made it seem more biographical. There were also newspaper clippings, pictures, and sound clips from Aimee Semple McPherson that divided different time periods and events in Aimee’s life. This really gave you a sense of her spirit and the dilemmas that not only she was dealing with but as her public saw them.

Sister Aimee is about much more than religion. It is about confusion, which hits Aimee numerous times through out her light. After Aimee loses some of her credibility, she doubts herself. She even gives theater a try, which is a terrible sin to her family and most of the religious society. Really what she is looking for through out everything is how to be happy. When she found her belief, it made her happy. So she wanted to help other reach this thinking it would give both them and her happiness. It did to an extent, but it doesn’t seem that she ever found true joy. This is a major reason why she found herself in so many relationships she couldn’t fully commit to. Aimee wanted love so she desperately looked for it never completely giving up on it. The main problem was that the one that she really loved had died. There were many other reasons but one reason for Aimee’s endless devotion to God seemed to be a way of holding on to him. She left every man after him and even abandoned her children.

The character of Aimee reminds me a lot of that of Hilary Faye from the film, Saved. Okay, so she is a bit less conceited and bitter, but in both cases religion is their entire identity. There is no person outside of it. This is really what literally kills Aimee. There were rumors of a suicide, but it appeared she had an accidental overdose. Either way, she was living in a trap. She was doomed to be miserable no matter how many lives she saved. When turning away from commitments and those that she loved her excuse was always that it wasn’t up to her since this is what God chose for her. She gives up her free will, judgment, and any other hope of joy. Aimee wasn’t living her life, she was living the life that she thought she was supposed to, which ended up being the death of her. Sister Aimee: The Aimee Semple McPherson Story is a powerful film about the hope, belief, and misery that was part of this woman’s life.