Susan Granger's review of "DANCING AT LUGHNASA" (Sony Pictures Classics)
Give two-time Academy Award winner Meryl Streep a juicy role with a foreign accent and, once again, she delivers a performance that shimmers with Oscar gold. In this screen adaptation of Brian Friel's Irish play about five unmarried sisters living in Donegal in 1936, she plays the self-righteous eldest, an imperious schoolteacher whose determination holds the family together - until, one magical August, everything changes. After spending 25 years as a missionary priest in Africa, their befuddled brother (Michael Gambon) returns. It's a family reunion complicated by the re-appearance of the wandering Welshman father of the eight year-old love-child of one of the sisters (Catherine McCormack) and the festival of Lughnasa, a pagan ritual to celebrate the harvest with music and dance. All of this emotional upheaval is set against a time of change - the first radio, which brings music into the modest farmhouse - and the industrial revolution, which puts an end to two sisters' occupation of knitting woolen gloves at home. Director Pat O'Connor not only delves into the hardscrabble beauty of the rural Irish landscape - aided by the magnificent cinematography of Kenneth MacMillan - but also elicits remarkably strong performances from each of the actors. Nevertheless, this is primarily a cerebral piece, not a cinematic one - which may prevent it from reaching a wider audience. How does the film compare with the play? It's better in that, on-stage, several of the Irish actors spoke with such thick brogues that - while the concept was clear - individual speeches were often indecipherable. On-screen, with the added advantage of close-ups, each word is easily understandable. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, "Dancing at Lughnasa" is an eloquent 7, a gritty tale of hardship and heartbreak.
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