Letters to Father Jacob

A woman newly out of prison (Kaarina Hazard) is given a job reading letters for a blind priest (Heikki Nousiainen). Leila is antagonistic and unapproachable, but finds the priest’s isolated home a way to transition back to being among normal people again. The letters she reads are from people asking for prayers for different reasons, which Father Jacob does. He sends back letters with hopeful messages, which Leila writes and sends for him. Sometimes the people send money donations, and this tempts Leila with thoughts to abandon her job and the priest. Slowly, though, we know her story and how it has shaped her personality and how Father Jacob draws her out in his slow unobtrusive manner. While she does hurtful things, she also does selfless things, such as pretending to read non-existent letters when the letters slowly stop coming.


This is basically a two person story, with some added interaction with the mailman who brings the letters. Although it takes its time to build up Leila’s wary behavior, thepart where we are told why she is the way she is seemed a bit rushed; we are told everything too quickly instead of allowing us to find out through developments in the story, that would be the major flaw of the movie for me. But the two main characters/actors have a good affinity for working with each other despite their different views and personalities. I am not quite convinced that Leila’s redemption/turnaround comes about so quickly due to her life with Father Jacob, as it was a rather short movie (around 80 minutes) that could have used a bit more time to flesh out her character and transformation.