It's 1957 and the setting is a small village in Ireland. Tara (Robin Wright Penn) lives with her sister and runs a tailoring/dressmaking shop. She has recently set the local tongues to wagging by having a baby out of wedlock and not naming the father. The town priest is encouraging her to look at Brendan (Albert Finney), a local police officer madly in love with her, as a possible husband. But, Tara is not in love with him and won't consider it. A second suitor actually commits suicide for the love of her, it is supposed. Only when a troupe of actors comes to town does Tara meet someone who interests her. That would be Tom (Aidan Quinn), a most friendly and engaging gentleman who stars in the troupe's productions. However, Brendan is most displeased to have a rival and thwarts Tom's attentions as best he can. Will Tara be able to find happiness? The Irish setting is beautiful, as no one can disguise the loveliness of the country. However, the story here is most somber. Life in this village is restrictive and sobering, with hardly a break, for anyone, from the harsh realities of life. Penn's Tara is a very worthy lady, who defies the odds to keep her son. Finney is wonderfully scary as the policeman who hounds Tara, day and night, to accept his hand. By contrast, Quinn's Tom is a breath of fresh air, with his good spirits and funny manners. If you wish to see Ireland, and can put up with a story of a depressing nature, this is a good view. For, although the tale is sad, it does have its moments and the scenery is a knockout. Just do not expect a mirthful tale, as depicted on the handsome box cover.
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emuir-17 June 2003This film was billed as a drama. You could have fooled me. The productions of the travelling group of thespians are the funniest things I have ever seen.
Forget the plot about the young unwed mother with two suitors and just watch the hilarious performances of the rag-tag travelling gypsy players who tour Ireland performing in a threadbare tent, led by the flamboyant actor manager played with gusto by Milo O'Shea. For those of you who are not familiar with this great Irish stage actor, Mr. O'Shea played Sam Malone's Irish Uncle in the Woody's Wedding two-part episode of Cheers, on TV.
The troupe of players are not above changing the script to accommodate whatever actors or costumes are available, and they open up with a song and dance act, no matter what the play. Lines are read from cue cards, and even made up as they go along. Even Othello begins with a can can. You will never be able to watch Gone with the Wind with a straight face again after you have seen it performed as a musical in a tent in a small Irish town. I have not laughed as much since I saw the theatrical troupe in a Midsummer Night's Dream.
The lead actors, Robin Wright and Aidan Quinn make an attractive couple, and Albert Finney does well as the heavy, but it is the players who make this movie such a joy. -
redvulf6 September 2012As is, this movie is loosely a romantic comedy which tries desperately to inject drama into a shallow, unconvincing plot. The story centers around the plight of a woman who has a child out of wedlock in a small Irish village in the 1950s. Instead of exploring the realistic spectrum of human behavior that could arise in such a situation, it relies on stale caricatures. It spends a lot of screen time trying to show how hypocritical all the village folk are as they look down on this poor single mother yet indulge in bad behavior every chance they get. For as we all know from watching many Hollywood movies, in the 1950s the world was ruled by silly hypocritical cavemen who forced their oppressive, outdated morality on the enlightened young'uns.
The main characters are not especially likable and when the single mother develops a new love interest, the plot fails to give a convincing reason why the couple would care about each other (beyond lust). That makes it very hard to care what happens.
Honestly, some people might think this movie is OK, but very few people will love it. The acting is decent, but the plot is just so uninspired and built around unrealistic clichés that it doesn't connect with the heart. -
pwmushkat29 October 2005In the tradition of low-key Anglo-European films, this is a brilliant depiction of the meeting of an independent spirit with a closed community. This is one of their own so they will not condemn absolutely. At the same time they cannot understand why, or how, anyone can take a radically different path. Paraphrasing Victor Borge, this is acting that is so low key it is off the keyboard but because of that it resonates in a register that affects absolutely. Absotutely brilliant. This is what real movies are all about. See it! I don't really have any more to say but the instructions are that one has to write a minimum of 10 lines and/or 10,000 words. Hopefully this entry meets that minimum requirement because if this entry convinces one more person to see this movie it will have been worth it.
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rapadgettra6 May 2021This could have been so much better. Albert Finney was too old, he wasn't believable as a lover, although he was famous at the time. Too much time given to the acting troop. Sex in the motor home in the middle of town square? I thought she wanted to loose the town floozie title? So confusing. So....very......slow......when it didn't need to be. No charisma between Robin and her.love interest...zero.... I'd skip it.
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I only decided to watch this film because Albert Finney starred. He is not in many of the scenes and therefore makes little impression.
The main problem is that the script has difficulty in making a point,and when it does so it is at a glacial pace.
This film is nearly two hours long and I would say it is one hour to long. As it's summer go out and watch the grass grow instead. -
TxMike29 February 2008It is rural Ireland and yearly a traveling show comes to town. They call themselves "The Playboys" because they do lots of different things, but feature different plays put on in a very small tent and on a vary small stage with minimal set. In one funny scene, we see towns people going to the movie house to see the film, "Gone With The Wind", and the next evening the Playboys are doing their stage interpretation of the same story, improvising after seeing the movie.
Aidan Quinn is Tom Casey, one of the members of the show troupe. He seems to be an irregular in that he doesn't plan to make it a career like the others.
Robin Wright is in full Irish accent as local townswoman Tara Maguire, single, and sharing a residence with her less pretty sister. Tara is the town scandal because she is pregnant out of wedlock, and she refuses to say who the father is. She and Tom are immediately attracted to each other, although she tries to keep her distance from the traveling show types.
The other key character is Albert Finney as Constable Brendan Hegarty. He is the sheriff in this one-police town. However his regional supervisor is not always happy with his efforts.
As Tom gets friendly with Tara, Hegarty becomes agitated and protective, seemingly wanting to prevent Tara from falling for this guy.
It is a fairly interesting and entertaining story, and the acting is first-rate, especially by Albert Finney.
SPOILERS: It turns out Hegarty is the father of Tara's child, in one encounter in the grass after she had a bit too much to drink. While Hegarty is madly in love with her, and wants her as his wife, she has no romantic feelings for him. As the movie ends Tara and Tom leave town, their fate unknown. -
dbdumonteil14 December 2003This is a fine depiction of a small Irish village,in a green country where a woman has a baby whereas she's not married.And however she could,because,at the beginning of the movie,she had two men longing for her.But,and it's the only modern touch in a rather obsolete movie,she wants a man she really loves and she does not care about the piece of advice the well-meaning and the priests are always giving to her.Albert Finney has got a thankless part as the rather ugly cop, even if he's just a jealous guy.Robin Wright is a good lead.That said,it's not what you call full throttle ,and some people might think that the tempo is really slow.
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lor_11 July 2023My review was written in March 1992 after watching the film at a Times Square screening room.
Excellent performances enliven a story that's as old as the hills in "The Playboys". Latest in a spate of Irish-set films should attract a modest audience.
Pic started off with a hitch when originally cast star Annette Bening dropped out on the eve of production. Replacement Robin Wright (Mrs. Sean Penn) was a felicitous choice, in her best film acting to date.
Story by Shane Connaughton, who co-scripted "My Left Foot", concerns an Irish lass (Wright) in 1957 who's shamed by her fellow townsfolk for being an unwed mother. She refuses to name the father, and in an eventful opening reel, one of her suitors (Adrian Dunbar of "Hear My Song") commits suicide.
It turns out he wasn't the daddy, but a new love enters her life with the arrival of Milo O'Shea's troupe of traveling actors, "The Playboys". Newest thesp in the company (Aidan Quinn) immediately impresses Wright and eventually beds her,. Fly in the ointment is the local constable (Albert Finney) who has always been in love with Wright and explodes into violence.
This familiar pattern of headstrong girl and passionas brimming beneath the surface is well directed by first time Scottish helmer GIlles MacKinnon, though the pace slow in middle reels as plot gives way to the troupe's enjoyable stage performances. Subplots involving Wright as troupe member Ian McElhinney's activities as an IRA terrorist are downpeddled.
Especially delicious is O'Shea's mummery, whether portraying "Othello" or staging an impromptu theatrical version of "Gone with the Wind" after watching the original at a local movie house.
Among the principals, American thesp Wright is vibrant and earthy. Heretofore used mainly as a decorative beauty ("The Princess Bride"), he gets to expand on the histrionics of hr best previous assignment, the recently released feature "Denial" (a/k/a "Loon").
Finney is a tower of strength as the repressed lover, and even gets to freak out in a violent scene reminiscent of Orson Welles as the elderly publisher busting up a room in "Citizen Kane". Quinn has the most ambiguous of the major roles but succeeds in keeping the audience guessing ast to whether he's a good guy or not.
Jack Conroy, who previously lensed Jm Sheridan's features, captures the remote Irish countryside with miniaturist skill.