Directed by Tomas Gomez Bustillo
Written by Tomas Gomez Bustillo
Starring Iair Said, Monica Villa, Pablo Moseinco
Release Date March 12th, 2023
Published March 13th, 2023
We open inside of a church somewhere in Argentina. Rita (Monica Villa) sits praying in the first pew, alone. Beside her are cleaning materials that she has set aside for her particular need to pray at this moment. Observed by interlopers, Rita is unmoved and continues diligently in prayer. The interlopers are her prayer group who have arrived to pray with her. Rita's role in the church is rather unclear early on. Yes, she's cleaning the church but is she an employee or a volunteer? Is she a church leader or a member of the congregation.
In the end, I guess that doesn't matter. The point is that she is deeply religious, pious, and dedicated. The plot of Chronicles of a Wandering Saint kicks in when, while cleaning a storage area of the church, Rita finds a statue of a Nun and she steals it with the aid of her loving, devoted, and slightly goofy husband, Lucho (Iair Said). Lucho is unaware of his wife's ruse, even as he helps smuggle the statue of Saint Rita from the church to his home.
The plot thickens with Rita tells her pastor, Father Eduardo (Pablo Moseinco) that the statue simply appeared in her home. It doesn't take much for him to declare it a miracle, sight unseen and we're off to the races, so to speak. Rita begins to try and authenticate evidence of her miracle. Soon, Rita does let Lucho in on the ruse and together they work on staging the miracle. The slightly upgraded, more biblically accurate, Statue of Saint Rita will suddenly appear at the church with Rita discovering it there, a genuine miracle.
And then... well, let's just say, the movie... changes. Something happens at the midpoint of Chronicles of a Wandering Saint that shifts a potential comic farce about a deeply religious woman staging a miracle into something entirely, remarkably unexpected. I am not going to spoil anything; I am recommending this movie and I certainly want you to enjoy it. I will only say that the twist is entirely unexpected and rather ingenious. You are making assumptions about what the twist is but I promise you, you won't guess it.
