Fr Peter Malone says this movie was made for Our Lady of Pentecost parishioners!
There are some written letters at the end of this Irish film but throughout, the four letters are literally L-O-V-E.
The screenplay is by the novelist, Niall Williams, from his 1997 novel which has been published in 20 countries. If the novel has had a following, this pleasing Irish tale could also build up a following.
The film is told from the point of view of the son of the central character, William, who, saying that he was inspired by God, suddenly got up from his desk job in his older age determined to go off to the Irish coast to paint. He is played very effectively by Pierce Brosnan, sympathetic, sometimes puzzling, obsessed with his quest for painting, strange treatment of his wife and difficulties in relating to his son, Nicholas (Fionn O’Shea).
In the meantime, the audience is introduced to a parallel story, a family on the West Coast, a poet-teacher, Muiris, a ruggedly convincing Gabriel Byrne, his busy wife, Margaret played by Helena Bonham Carter, a cheerful son, Donal Finn, and an exuberant daughter still at school, Angela Skelly.
Each story has its intense drama, and we know that they will eventually come together.
The film is Catholic in atmosphere, an amount of God language, a sad and sudden accident and impairment, the daughter sent to an ultra-strict convent school with grim-faced severe nuns and happily running away, the local priest and ceremonies, and reflection on God, God’s seemingly harsh interventions, God’s will, but also miraculous interventions in our world.
While there are some scenes in Dublin, most of the action takes place in the Irish countryside and coast, ruggedly beautiful. The performances are fine, the screenplay bringing the two stories together dramatically – and with some pervading spirituality.
Throughout the significant performance is that of Fionn O’Shea as the son Nicholas, confiding his story, a creative young man, wanting to be a writer, not understanding his father, craving some kind of affection, wilfully going after him to the coast, and then encountering the poet’s family, being welcomed, finding a home, and, beset by an infatuation with the poet’s daughter, who, herself, has married a charming but feckless young man who had helped her when she was running away from the school.
There is the potential for tragedy as the girl’s mother, Margaret, does not approve of the love, does her best to curtail it, this very much involving the literal four written letters of love. But, as we hoped for, a move towards some resolution, reconciliations, greater understandings, and the triumph of pervading love.
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