I hate to say this, but the trailer is better than the movie.
The movie morphs back and forth from the life of Flannery O'Connor to scenes from her books. But it didn't use cues to let you know this (for example, in films usually dreams are tinted blue, or there are other clues that you have left the timeline for flashbacks).
I have read a few of her stories/books and recognized some of the scenes, but what about those who had not read anything? And why did the movie highlight these scenes? One suspects the scenes should point to experiences in her life. But they didn't. At least for an unsophisticated person like myself,, they seemed a distraction: They just seem to be inserted sort of like TV inserts commercials into programs that interrupt the flow of the story but don't have anything to do with the program.
and it leaves out her personal life: what scenes were when she at college or when she was at home? why didn't she marry Robert Lowell (There is a quick scene with him asking to marry him: did she have an affair with him? Did she refuse marriage because he was bipolar and violent at times? Did she refuse marriage because he was divorced and she was a good Catholic? Did she really love him at all?).
Summary: If you know about her life and writings, watch it. If not, it is a snooze fest.
Trivia fact: Maya Hawke: The daughter of Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman) plays Flannery and deserves an award for her acting.
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now, as a physician, let me add some stuff about her disease, Lupus, a very nasty auto immune disease that affects not only the joints but other organs.
Some background on Lupus and the illness of Flannery O'Connor illness from a doctor's point of view:
Lupus has a high rate of psychiatric problems like depression and anxiety, and the film doesn't mention that the treatment (she mentions pituitary gland injections, which is an old treatment to increase your level of cortisone, without the side effect of inducing adrenal atrophy) can cause hyperactivity or even psychosis.
Since she died, not of Lupus but after surgery, one wonders if she had a sluggish adrenal gland that caused her to die because no one recognized the danger of addisonian crisis from stressful surgery. Or did she die of renal failure (the most common cause of death in lupus patients) because the stress of surgery tipped her borderline functioning kidneys into failure? Did the lupus and years of steroid treatment weaken her immune system so that she died of infection?
Not much written about her medical crisis with surgery: PBS notes:
Doctors inform O'Connor her anemia is caused by a fibroid tumor and needs surgery. She continues to revise "Revelation" while in the hospital, hiding drafts under her pillow. The surgery reactivates her lupus. She grows weaker from post-surgery infections. O’Connor is readmitted to Baldwin County Hospital, falls into a coma, and dies early on Aug. 3rd. At age 39, O’Connor is buried next to her father in Milledgeville on Aug. 4th.
Sigh.
you need to give patients who were on steroids for any reason a high dose of cortisone/prednisone during any stressful illness or surgery or they will go into Addisonian crisis:
trivia fact: This happened during back surgery on JFK, who had lowgrade Addison's disease but was not diagnosed with it No one was aware of his borderline Adrenal function (that could not respond to the need for more steroids with stress, so he went into shock), and they saved him by giving him steroids, and his case report was actually written up in the literature.,,
PBS had a documentary on her life if you want more information
and A Good Man is Hard to find audiobook:
...
Yale courses has this lecture on her writings.
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