CIRCLE OF FRIENDS
A film review by Ben Hoffman
Copyright 1995 Ben Hoffman
Chris O'Donnell, the male lead in the film, is handsome, young (24), and at the top of my list for a long and fruitful career as an actor. Remember him in SCENT OF A WOMAN where he played opposite Al Pacino, winning a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actor and the Chicago Film Critics award for The Most Promising Actor of the Year? His charisma hits you instantly. In CIRCLE OF FRIENDS he plays Jack Foley, the star of the rugby team at the college he attends in Dublin. (O'Donnell, by the way, is the only American in the film.)
There are friends and there are friends and not always do they do the expected. In 1957, Benny (Minnie Driver) and her friend Eve (Geraldine O'Rawe) leave their small town of Knockglen to attend college in Dublin where they run into another friend, Nan (Saffron Burrows). While Nan is a blonde beauty and Eve is a beautiful brunette, Bennie is the "plain Jane." It ia interesting to note that Driver, who plays Benny is a beautiful TV star in the UK who had to put on thirty pounds to give her a somewhat dowdy look.
The story, written by best-selling author Maeve Binchy, is of the goals, the hopes and dreams of the three small-town women who are now on their own and of Jack who sees in Benny the goodness and inner charm that more superficial men had failed to notice.
Conflict and deceit intrude among the friends in the circle; nothing in real life goes smoothly forever. Director Pat O'Connor superbly brings all of that to life in this very lovely film.
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Ben Hoffman
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