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Audrey Hepburn in THE NUN’S STORY (‘59) by Kristen Welch 

 May the fourth has become an annual Star Wars holiday, and while I’ll admittedly be celebrating the force tomorrow, I’ll also be celebrating a cinematic icon: Audrey Hepburn. I’m definitely not alone in calling Hepburn my favorite actress, a fact that goes beyond her famous style and has to do with an appreciation of her life and career. In fact, there are a number of films we could recommend to you to watch on her birthday, titles you recognize or perhaps have watched a few—maybe dozen—times. Instead, I would like to recommend a film that is lesser known though arguably one of her best performances: THE NUN’S STORY (1959, available to watch on FilmStruck). The role of Sister Luke would, in fact, remain the role Hepburn felt closest to and the performance she was proudest of. 

Born on May 4, 1929 in Belgium, Hepburn would live through Nazi occupation before making her way to London and eventually, Hollywood. Living through the war was something that stayed with Hepburn for the rest of her life, and it was her experiences as a child that lead her to THE NUN’S STORY ('59). The book by Kathryn Hulme tells a fictionalized account of the real-life Marie Louise Habets, a Belgian nun whose experiences in Africa and, eventually, World War II—in which she was asked to remain neutral and not take sides—would cause her to leave the order. 

Hepburn shines as Sister Luke, showcasing the character’s inner struggle between her religion and what she sees happening in the world; and these small moments and touches that Hepburn brings to the character is captured brilliantly by director Fred Zinnemann. It is less about style and fashion than Hepburn’s other 1950s films (so, no Givenchy here); instead, Hepburn is outfitted in a plain nun’s habit, in which she finds a way to express everything through her eyes. It is a quiet and powerful film, whose final moments will stay with you long after the movie has finished. It remains one of the most personal of Hepburn’s performances, one in which she used her own experiences to inform her character, and the film is all the stronger for it.