Tom Cairns Movies
Tom Cairns directs the psychological comedy drama Marie and Bruce, adapted from the play by Wallace Shawn. Set over a period of 24 hours, the black comedy involves the troubled marriage of neurotic New Yorkers Marie (Julianne Moore) and Bruce (Matthew Broderick). What follows is a bleak psychological study of the breakdown of a modern relationship. Also starring Griffin Dunne and Campbell Scott. Musical score by Mark de Gli Antoni of Soul Coughing. Marie and Bruce was shown at the Sundance Film Festival in 2004. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Julianne Moore, Matthew Broderick, (more)
- 2001
A jazz vocal trio appears to set the scene of a little white house in Suburbia, the occupants of which are Sam and Dinah, a couple married for 10 years who seem to have lost the ability to communicate effectively. Breakfast is a tense ritual, with Dinah accusing Sam of having an interest in her secretary, a charge he angrily denies. Matters worsen when Sam refuses to come see their son in his school play, as he wishes to go to the gym and participate in an important handball tournament. Sam goes to work, where he gets tremendous satisfaction from his handling of business affairs, and Dinah visits her analyst, to whom she reveals a dream about a beautiful garden gone to seed and a yearning for "a quiet place," a place she was once sure she and Sam would find together. Sam, in the meantime, is reminded by his secretary of a pass he once made at her, and he is discomforted by this. Leaving her session, Dinah runs into Sam on the street, but they each pretend they have other engagements to avoid spending time with each other. Dinah attends a film, Trouble in Tahiti, a torrid South Seas romance which she initially derides, but which clearly has affected her. Sam wins his handball tournament, but his joy turns to sorrow when he pictures the argument he is bound to have with Dinah. The two have a halting conversation which leads nowhere, and Dinah admits she too missed their son's play. Depressed and unable to confront their problems, they go to see the film Dinah viewed that afternoon, looking for fulfillment onscreen that they cannot find in their own lives. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Stephanie Novacek, Karl Daymond, (more)
An embittered ex-IRA soldier and widowed father finds his efforts to keep his family together crumbling due to his own tyrannical approach to parenting in director Tom Cairns' adaptation of the novel by John McGahern. Michael Moran (Tony Doyle) has witnessed enough death and destruction to last a lifetime, and now that his wife is gone Michael is desperate to keep the family together. But Michael's daughters are bound together by fear of their brutal father, and his sons long for the day they will never have to endure another beating. As his children strike out on their own, a failed father is left to deal with his broken heart all alone. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tony Doyle, Ger Ryan, (more)
