Mary McGuckian Movies

A physician who helps his clients bring new life into the world is accused of an ethical breach that's also criminal in this independent drama. Dr. Freeman (Colm Feore) is a doctor who runs an upscale fertility clinic in Las Vegas, Nevada. Freeman specializes in helping women who have had trouble getting pregnant conceive, usually through artificial insemination techniques or transplanting donated eggs into his patients. Over the course of several weeks, Freeman inseminates nine women from different walks of life, ranging from middle-aged but newly married Lottie (Andie MacDowell) and a lesbian whose reproductive clock is ticking, Elsa (Donna D'Errico) to Frances (Geraldine Chaplin), an aging socialite who needs a son to inherit her husband's fortune and sassy, outspoken Salome (Jennifer Tilly). Of these nine women, eight become pregnant and give birth to healthy children, but when the new mothers compare notes, they discover their children bear a striking resemblance to one another. When journalist Tallulah (Elizabeth McGovern) looks into their story, they begin to suspect that Freeman used his own sperm to fertilize his patients rather than the donor samples they selected, a breach of conduct that lands the doctor in court. Inconceivable also stars Kerry Fox, Amanda Plummer and Colin Mochrie; Geraldine Chaplin's daughter Oona Chaplin co-stars as Frances's grown daughter. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Thornton Wilder's award-winning novel is given a lavish screen adaptation in this historical drama from writer and director Mary McGuckian. In Peru in 1714, a rickety bridge collapsed as five people were attempting to cross, forcing them to plunge to their deaths. Brother Fray Juniper (Gabriel Byrne) is a Franciscan monk who has been given the duty of looking into the tragedy by the archbishop of Lima (Robert De Niro), and to learn what he can about the victims. It is Juniper's belief that these particular people died for some reason, and that it is his duty to determine why God chose these five people to perish, while others in the vicinity survived. After five years, Juniper delivers his findings to the archbishop as well as the viceroy of Peru (F. Murray Abraham), as Juniper tells them of the lives of the troubled Dona Maria (Kathy Bates), the nun Pepita (Adriana Dominguez), warm-hearted Uncle Pio (Harvey Keitel), street kid-turned-actress La Perichola (Pilar Lopez de Ayala), and others involved in the tragedy. The Bridge of San Luis Rey also features Geraldine Chaplin, John Lynch, and brothers Mark Polish and Michael Polish. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Mary McGuckian wrote and directed this "Romeo and Juliet"-style story set in Northern Ireland after the 1994 cease fire. Young Hazel Stokes (Samantha Morton) is very much a part of her family's austere, rural Protestant way of life, and her family, despite the cease-fire, feels betrayed by the British. Her neighbor, Old Man Jacobs (Richard Harris) befriends Hazel and convinces her parents to let her go out more often. When Hazel and Jacobs attend a Belfast agricultural show, she meets young Catholic Malachy McAliskey (Ross McDade), and a doomed affair develops during clandestine meetings. Malachy's older brother Padhar (John Lynch) approves of the romance, but his unit leader in the militant underground, Rohan (Gabriel Byrne) is concerned over Malachy's lack of "allegiance to the cause." At the same time, Hazel's brother Jef (Marc O'Shea) spies on Hazel and informs her mother (Dearbhla Molloy). Eventually, the innocent couple is surrounded by violence. Music by the Waterboys, Mike Scott, and Brian Kennedy. Shown at the 1997 London Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide