Honestly, I liked it, even though it wasn't perfect. One of the most beautiful and well-made religious films I've ever seen, mainly due to the quality of the actors, young Stephanie Gil is brilliant, and the children Alejandra Howard and Jorge Lamelas are also perfect, the adult cast also does a great job. Setting and ambience are realistic, it manages to portray place and time well, soundtrack is pleasant, direction and production have good quality, in short, a lot of good things. The only thing that slips is the script, which is confusing, it skips several moments of the real story, and anyone who doesn't know it will feel quite confused, especially in the last third, where there is an even greater void in the details of the real facts, leaving out a lot of things.

I think this is a movie where spoilers might be useful for those who don't know the real story. It's worth doing some search on the internet and reading a little about it, in order to watch the film knowing how everything happened, it's the only way to not get lost with the final part of the film and understand that a lot was excluded from the script.

Rating 7 out of 10, it could be an even higher rating if it weren't for the problem I mentioned above.

It's almost five years to the day that I watched and reviewed the 1952 film, "The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima", so a detailed comparison would be hard to make at this point. I do remember that the earlier film interjected some humor into the story with a fictional Uncle Hugo to the three young children who witnessed the apparitions of "The Lady of the Rosary". He had a donkey named Lucifer, which was almost like asking for trouble from heaven above, while later in the story he tried to take advantage of his relationship to the children by peddling souvenirs from the location where the visions appeared.

From my vantage point, I thought this was a well executed and reverent portrayal of the events that took place in Fatima, Portugal over a six month span in the middle of 1917. Being raised a Catholic, I had heard the story numerous times in parochial school along with that of Bernadette Soubirous of France in 1858. This film incorporates a modern day take on the miracle with an author (Harvey Keitel) interviewing the elderly Sister Lucia Santos (Sônia Braga), with their exchanges providing perspective on each other's faith and in the case of Professor Nichols, his natural skepticism. Undeterred in her belief of what occurred as a child, Lucia offers the most honest appraisal she can when pressed, "I don't have answers for everything".

What most impresses about the child Lucia (Stephanie Gil) and her sibling cousins, Jacinta (Alejandra Howard) and Francisco (Jorge Lamelas), is their dedicated conviction held firmly in belief that what they witnessed was an apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary, even if the woman they experienced never called herself by that name. When their loosely held secret was eventually revealed, the villagers of the town expressed their own Judgment on the matter, with the majority taking the side of the children in their belief of divine intervention. What's puzzling is how the local priest and his spiritual authorities approached the visions as childhood fantasies, or worse, the work of the devil, which is somewhat ironic in that they would have believed in Satan making an earthly appearance in favor of the Mother of God. Seems rather twisted to me.

The story would not have been complete without mentioning the events of the sixth and final monthly appearance of The Lady of the Rosary, culminating in the "Miracle of the Sun". This would have been one aspect of the film that deserved better treatment in my view, as the miracle was represented merely as a glowing orb without including the spectacular display witnessed by seventy thousand faithful on October 13th, 1917. I realize that for non-believers, the story of Our Lady of Fatima is one to be skeptically challenged or ridiculed outright, but I would invite anyone with an open heart and mind to view the picture and experience the virtuous faith that guided these three youngsters to a life of pious devotion.

This is a story of the Fatima sightings as told by Sister Lucia, the surviving of the three children. A doubter and author hear the story directly from the sister. He casts his doubt through the tale. The flashback starts in 1917 Portugal where Lucy (Stephanie Gil) and her siblings have their vision. It gives an historic recollection of the crowds that it attracted. What was interesting was the command to pray the rosary every day. It seemed to be a prerequisite to go to heaven. Sorry non-Catholics who don't have a rosary. I also found interesting was the appearance was on the 13th of every month. 13 is the number of the Goddess and women. There are 13 lunar cycles in a solar year. It is the number associated with the woman's monthly cycle. Great for Catholics.