Entertaining Angels: The Dorothy Day Story is a biographical account of a woman with a deep desire to help others. This mindset led her from leftist theories to the Catholic Church. It was within the Church, through the lens of love, that she found true meaning and the energy to help the needy and the abandoned.

In her youth, Dorothy Day led a bohemian life as a feminist activist fighting for women’s rights. Alongside the public protests she was involved in, she was no stranger to various all-night drinking binges with strange pseudo-intellectuals, nor to romantic flings that, unfortunately, had no future.

A major emotional trauma for Dorothy was the termination of her own pregnancy at the request of the child’s father. She realizes how foolish she had been and begins to reflect more deeply on life. She moves to the countryside near the coast, where she meets an old friend, Forster. She decides to live with him, and after some time, they have a daughter.

In this environment, she comes into contact with a Catholic nun who cares for the poor. Dorothy is enchanted by the kindness, simplicity, and self-sacrifice she experiences in the Catholic community.

She gradually transforms from a leftist into a practicing Catholic, despite attacks and ridicule from her free-thinking, anarchist, and atheist acquaintances. Dorothy does not want her child to live aimlessly, as she herself had until recently, and so she has her daughter baptized and intends to raise her in the Catholic faith.

After some time, she returns to the city. Faced with the extreme poverty that prevails there, she decides to devote herself to serving the poor. Time and again, she miraculously secures the funds needed to run her charitable organization.

Dorothy’s dedication attracts many volunteers and benefactors who join her in her magnificent work. Over the years, her efforts help a vast number of people in need.

Of course, it wasn’t without difficulties, and she faced obstacles even from those from whom she least expected them.

Drama / Biographical

USA, 1996, 110 min

Crew: Michael Ray Rhodes

Cast: Moira Kelly, Martin Sheen, Lenny von Dohlen, Melinda Dillon, Heather Graham

Parents Guide

1 extended kissing scene in bed. Additional kissing scenes with lovers. Courtship and seduction of a young woman. Implied extramarital affairs with men.

Women being beaten with batons during a feminist demonstration. Women fighting with men. Dorothy undergoing an abortion. Discovery of a homeless woman who committed suicide.

The phrase “go fuck yourself” is uttered. A few instances of anti-religious statements by Dorothy’s atheist acquaintances.

Frequent smoking and drinking of alcohol.

One instance of theft.

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