In the specialty category “movies about movies,” one of the most durable subgenres is the heartwarming drama about how cinema transforms the character of a remote, conservative small town. In Stella Days—an adaptation of a Michael Doorley book—Martin Sheen plays a forward-thinking Catholic priest in 1950s Ireland, stationed in a poor parish where even electricity is greeted with suspicion. Denied his request to retire to a big city to study, and tasked by his bishop to raise money for a new church, Sheen makes plans to open a movie theater he calls “The Stella,” to benefit the diocese and give his congregation a greater sense of the outside world. But to pay for the equipment and to set up the space, Sheen has to borrow from funds already set aside for the new church, which worries his bosses. Also, local politician Stephen Rea, who’s up for re-election, sees an angle in standing against the moral turpitude of motion pictures. Meanwhile, young teacher Trystan Gravelle—a friend of Sheen’s—scandalizes his neighbors when he befriends a young mother whose husband lives and works out of town.