Who knew there’s so much red tape involved if a nun decides to give up everything to work for the poor? If there’s one thing director William Riead’s new film, The Letters, a biopic on the life of Mother Teresa, does well, it’s showing the bureaucratic web the late Mother had to swim through in order to follow her call from God: to help the poorest of the poor, in a still very much caste-driven India.

Especially as we get further from Mother Teresa’s death, at the age of 87 in 1987, the reason this sort of film works, is through filling in the gaps, letting a legend become a human. But whether it’s the shortage of the source material (Teresa shied away from journalistic coverage, and the film is based on letters she wrote to friends and family) or just the reverence of the filmmakers, there seems to be a certain hollowness to this film that’s ironically all about a woman with a lot of heart.

At least the lead was well cast. Juliet Stevenson does a commendable job with the accent (a Macedonian living and India), as well as portraying the humbleness of her character—it’s not so easy reciting lines like “It’s God’s work, not mine” and coming off as entirely genuine. Indeed the first 35 minutes of the film, which focuses primarily on her attempt to convince both the mother general of the girl’s school where she teaches and the pope in Rome that she should be allowed to give up her vows as a cloistered nun in order to work amongst the poor, is very watchable.

But by the time we actually get onto the streets of Calcutta, The Letters becomes something of a lazy movie, both in writing and acting. The dialogue feels cliché and somehow condensed (like instead of going through the trouble of zeroing in on an evolving relationship, the lines from the Indians repeat the refrain “You want to convert our kids to your Christian god?” or “What are you doing among us, white woman?”). It’s as if years of dialogue are abbreviated into just the main ideas. And thus, we never really feel for any of the relationships she makes on the street.

The one attempt at creating a real relationship takes place in the span of about 10 minutes. An Indian man is among her chief critics, but surprise surprise, in the very next scene when she helps his wife deliver her baby, he falls to his knees in gratitude. There’s never again dialogue between the two characters, but he shows up time for time, like in a scene where she tries to turn a temple into a hospice for the poor. It’s just assumed in black and white that he’s giving his support, that the two are forever allied. The music feels equally forced and lazy, heavy strings coming in whenever she teaches a child to read or helps a dying man, as if there needs to be a scrolling marquee above each scene: “You’re supposed to be feeling moved right now.”

The movie requires a lot of assumptions in lieu of actually developing characters and relationships. It’s as if its expected the viewer will come in already in full admiration of the character, so taking the time to show a character arc, or any intimate scenes, is completely unnecessary. But, of course, it is necessary. One of the film’s biggest missteps is in its structure. We start in the modern-day, where a man of the cloth is making the case for Teresa’s canonization as a saint. He serves as the film’s narrator, and tells us of Teresa’s loneliness as shown in the letters and her crises of faith, and yet none of these themes that would have done wonders to make Teresa seem relatable are acted out in actual scenes. It’s as if the script falls prey to that old writing adage, “show, don’t tell.” There’s a lot of telling.

But where there’s not any telling is in a complete failure to address the criticisms laid against Teresa in more modern times (the lack of medical training of her staff, as well as some questions on how money was being used). These criticisms may not be entirely fair, but ignoring them makes the film feel something like a Hallmark channel movie, meant to make the viewers feel good, even at the risk of over-sensationalizing a topic.

The fact of the matter is conflict creates interest. It gets viewers engaged. It creates stakes. And besides the initial arc with the bureaucratic red tape of getting the Vatican to approve her mission, there just isn’t enough conflict to keep the steam up, especially not for two hours. Every encounter on the streets turns into a mini miracle. Not setbacks there. We only get told about her internal struggles in the most periphery way—surely Stevenson could have handled some harder scenes with the subtle grace the part requires. And we don’t even attempt to address contemporary criticisms. The film doesn’t do a lot more to explain who Teresa is than her Wikipedia page, and for a film about a woman who loved the unloved, that seems like a real missed opportunity.

Alicia Scherson’s Il Futuro (The Future) is an adaptation of a Chilean novel by Roberto Bolano about two recently orphaned siblings that must find a way to make it on their own. Their uncertain future is the backbone of the story as they come across some bizarre adventures that require difficult moral decisions. Balancing nicely with the drab visual overtones are the instances of tragedy that pop up throughout the film. However, the best part of the story takes too long to develop, and when it finally does it dissolves far too quickly.

Bianca (Manuela Martelli) Tomas (Luigi Ciardo) are two siblings who have just recently lost their parents due to a fatal car accident. The two are only able to inherit their father’s pension, which is barely enough to provide food, so Bianca must take up a job at a hair salon and Tomas works at a gym (though it’s more like volunteering in exchange to use the machines for free). Tomas befriends a couple of male co-workers at the gym who end up convincing Bianca to rob a former Mister Universe and movie star who goes by his stage name Marciste (Rutger Hauer). He is an easy target because he is now blind, retired, and living alone in his crumbling mansion.

The original plan was for Bianca to first gain the trust of Marciste by seducing him, and then find the safe he uses to store all of his money. However, a strange friendship is formed between the two unlikely pair instead. Perhaps their bond was formed because they both have flawed vision due to car accidents; Marciste cannot see at all and Bianca can barely handle light because a psychological condition. In the end she must decide which is more important, the newfound relationship with Marciste or his money.

It is easy to draw comparisons between Il Futro and the classic tale of Beauty and the Beast—a young and beautiful girl falls in love with a wealthy reclusive man whose imperfection in this case is not being able to see—a tragedy considering her physical beauty. The film also pays homage to classic cinema as a whole, most noticeable with Marciste’s backstory of being a famous Hollywood actor from the 60’s.

One aspect of Il Futuro that could be considered both a blessing and a curse are the various directions the film spirals off to. There is an overall case of tragedy from start to finish, but what begins as more of a coming of age story, gets interrupted by sporadic and brief eroticism, film noir, and criminal components. Not to mention that the film feels entirely different when it is spent trapped inside the decaying mansion, a seemingly enchanted atmosphere compared to the more modern slice of life outside of it. This variety of elements in of itself would not be such a bad thing if in the end it all added up to something more remarkable. Unfortunately, the ending is so anticlimactic that it deflates much of what came before it.