"Screen Door Jesus" is an overlooked, ignored gem. I almost said "forgotten," but that's not true. Anyone who's actually
seen it isn't likely to forget it anytime soon. Crafted like a sprawling Robert Altman film, it has dozens of characters occupying the small town of Bethlehem, Texas, where religion plays a part in everyone's lives. What makes it different from most films about small Southern towns, though, is that the religion is treated intelligently and knowingly, rather than merely being used as a shorthand method of describing someone. (How many movies feature characters summed up as "narrow-minded Christian from the South"?) The central event is that old Miss Harper (Cynthia Dorn) has discovered a shape on her screen door that looks like Jesus. Soon her front yard is overrun by pilgrims eager to see the Lord and worship at His screen door image. The whole town's in a tizzy about it.
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