One True Thing 15
Directed by Carl Franklin Starring Meryl Streep, Renee Zellweger, William Hurt, Tom Everett Scott
This moving drama from the director of One False Move ????????Devil in a Blue Dress was inexplicably passed over for cinema release here even though Streep received a best actress Oscar nomination earlier this year for her sensitive, characteristically uncompromising portrayal of a warm-natured, houseproud, middle-aged woman struggling to deal with being diagnosed with cancer - and with her husband's infidelity. Zellweger plays her ambitious journalist daughter who reluctantly comes home to care for her in this honest and direct movie which survives an awkward flashback structure.
A Love Divided 12
Directed by Syd Macartney Starring Orla Brady, Liam Cunningham, Tony Doyle
One of the grittiest and most compelling Irish films of recent years, this chilling drama chronicles a shocking true story of bitter sectarian conflict in the Wexford village of Fethard-on-Sea in the late 1950s. Cunningham and Brady play the mixed marriage couple who incur the wrath of the browbeating parish priest (Doyle) when they resist his demand that their daughter attends a Catholic school. The cast is exemplary in this smouldering drama which is rendered all the more startling by its factual basis.
Best Laid Plans 18
Directed by Mike Barker Starring Alessandro Nivola, Reese Witherspoon, Josh Brolin
Nothing is quite as it seems in this visually stylish and generally unpredictable Tarantino-influenced thriller set in a dead-end American town where a newcomer (Brolin) is accused of rape by a young woman (Witherspoon) he meets in a bar, and he calls his old college friend (Nivola) to discuss his predicament.