Wonderful Movie

Pretty Good

It is a performances centric movie

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Dancing at Lughnasa (Pat O'Connor, 1996) is an oddly muted drama in which nothing really happens, for an hour and a half. "Progress is a comfortable disease," observed grammar-phobic poet e e cummings. For him, maybe, but for five unmarried sisters in '30s Ireland, it's anything but, as the march of time throws their life together into jeopardy. The spectre of industry and dwindling school rolls are looming, threatening to put teacher Meryl Streep (who is really annoying here, sometimes intentionally) and professional knitters Sophie Thompson and Brid Brennan out of work and break up the family unit. Not that they seem very happy to begin with, bickering and casting light on another's neuroses in a way that becomes quickly wearing very quickly. There's love in the house, for sure, but there's a lot more repression and glumness, much of it uninteresting and trite.As well as the breadwinners, we meet happy-go-lucky Kathy Burke, fifth sister Catherine McCormack - spending a summer with returning lover Rhys Ifans - a clergyman brother ravaged by dementia (Michael Gambon), and young Darrell Johnston, the story told through his eyes. The film has uniformly good performances, but it's often clichéd and unenlightening, with an opening and closing voice-over that apes How Green Was My Valley and seems to bear little relation to the action in between. On the plus side, occasional moments of insight peek through the overbearing script and there are two really good scenes. One has the family flicking through a photo album and recalling lost love; it's a quiet tour-de-force from Burke. The other, which partly gives the film its title, is simply great, as the sisters begin dancing to a song on the radio, their celebrations growing ever more feverish until they spill out into the yard. It's a moment of sheer wonder amid much muddled misery.

This is a lovely film with a simple story line: the day to day lives of a family (all women, though one brother who very much counts at least in his ruined optimism) and a (love) child and a father. I found the group very loving and burning deep inside for life to bring them something each wanted. The terminal sadness lay in the fact that none of them were able to rise to a powerful and charismatic persona that conquers the world, which has so often been used in other films (Seldom in plays. They are too real and difficult.) to satisfy our need to live through the character(s) and become a force to be reckoned with. I never read the play (to my chagrin) nor did I see the Broadway show which I recall received much praise, but though I too was saddened as the family structure unravels, I felt it was so true that I had to accept the way the story comes to a close.I didn't view the film with the thought of this family being staunch Catholics, with the fervid strictness imposed on the lives of believers (in that country, particularly). Nevertheless I found the dance (where Danny tries to overwhelm Rose, and thanks to her brother does not succeed) alarming and disquieting, whereas the dance performed by the five sisters was alive with joy and desire-- abandon--which when the music stops, they each fall into self-consciousness at the revelation of their deep feelings.I give the movie a 9 only because I do not have the technical, critical, artistic knowledge to give it the 10 I believe it deserves.

I may be alone in this but I see movies for one of two reasons: I'm trying to learn and grow through the experiences of others or I am trying to escape from the real world for a little while and be entertained. 'Dancing at Lughnasa' is a poetic ode to ... well thematically it suggests that life is full of very brief but powerful moments of happiness. Seek out those moments and wring as much joy out of them as you can. Then basically you should enjoy the memories because life, according the film, is a crescendo of misery and tragedy that will destroy every good thing in it. If this sounds like the movie for you, be my guest. It falls quite neatly into the 'glad I saw it; happier never to see it again' category.There are great performances from all of the leads in this film. Meryl Streep turns in yet another great performance as the oldest of five sisters who is trying desperately to keep her family together. Michael Gambon gives an inspired performance as a damaged brother who returns to Ireland after 25 years as a missionary in Uganda. The interplay between all of the characters is wonderful, and from a technical standpoint I thought that the film was very well shot and directed.As depressing and as inevitable as the conclusion is, the story is very engaging and kept me hooked from start to finish. Overall not really my cup of tea but if, to paraphrase Hobbes, you like to be reminded that life is 'nasty, brutish and short' than this is the film for you. probably good to watch if you feel like being reminded of your own little miseries or, on the other hand, if you delight in seeing that others are much worse off than you.

I just saw this movie on cable, and not having seen the play, was able to truly enjoy and relate to the people and situations portrayed in it. I can imagine that the play was deeper, etc. The same thing happens in adaptations of books into movies. But as someone who knew nothing at all about this movie, I was transfixed for the whole time I watched it and sad at the end. I recommend it highly, especially for lovers of Ireland, Irish drama, Meryl Streep, and the 30's. You won't be wasting your time!!***P.S. Is it considered a spoiler if you state that a film seemed sad to you? That is the only reason I added the spoiler notation. Or do you have to actually spell out what happened? Thanks.