Sister Helen

Sister Helen don't take no bull.

A memorable portrait of a true New York character, Rob Fruchtman and Rebecca Cammisa's documentary ably captures the blazing force at its center.

Using a fly-on-the-wall camera technique that suggests the cinéma vérité documentaries of Frederick Wiseman, Ms. Cammisa and Mr. Fruchtman vividly capture the dynamic of tenderness and rage that characterizes Sister Helen's relationship with the 21 men who live under her roof.

Riveting portrait of a straight-talking, tough-loving Benedictine nun in charge of a South Bronx home for recovering substance abusers.

See the true story of Sister Helen and her band of weary men now.

The unspoken question that underlies their struggles is whether a facility run by sheer force of personality can survive when that personality is gone; the film ends on a cautiously hopeful note.

Perhaps if Sister Helen had been released when filming was completed in 2000, its tough-loving Irish nun, who gives hell to male drug addicts in a Mott Haven "safe house," might have passed for endearing.