In this American Film Institute-subsidized short subject, Fionnula Flanagan plays a sharp-tongued but compassionate nun, while Peter Lempert is cast as a sullen, emotionally disturbed boy. The title refers to the "thawing" process that occurs when the nun attempts to break through Lempert's wall of silence. Winner of the Oscar for "Best Short Film, Live Action". Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2012.
“Sister Irene” (Fionnula Flanagan) is a nun throughly immersed in the Shakespeare that she teaches to her students, but she’s not perhaps the most approachable of women. One afternoon she is introduced to the quite thought-provoking “Allan” (Peter Lampert) whose eccentric behaviour has seen him shunted out of his history class and into her reluctant path, and who is much less inclined to take her interpretations of the bard as gospel. After a fairly intense start, he is soon something of a gadfly as he seems completely unaware of any concept of her personal space - he isn’t quite a stalker, but he does have quite an un-nerving effect on her (and us) so she begins to investigate a little of his background and that is when she discovers that he might not be quite what she thinks, or he purports to be. On that front, Lampert actually delivers really quite intensely and that makes space for Flanagan to show an intellectual vulnerability that at times is quite poignant, but none of that effort is really sustained. It could have been quite an interesting exploration of religiosity, personality and maybe even obsession, but it’s too short to really develop either character to an extent where we can get to grips with the thrust of a story that challenges ideas of emotional isolation, and though it’s worth a watch it’s maybe encouraging the viewer to put to much meat on it’s bones.