Breffini McKenna Movies
In this successful psychological thriller, a reluctant agent of the Irish Republican Army discovers that some people just aren't who you expect them to be. Fergus (Stephen Rea) is an IRA "volunteer" who, despite personal misgivings, takes part in the kidnapping of a black British soldier, Jody (Forest Whitaker), stationed in Northern Ireland. The IRA hopes to use Jody as a bargaining chip to win the release of IRA operatives behind bars, but, while guarding Jody, Fergus becomes fast friends with his prisoner. Jody makes Fergus promise him that if he dies, Fegus will look in on his girlfriend, Dil (Jaye Davidson), and see if she's all right. Jody escapes, and Fergus doesn't have the heart to shoot him; as fate would have it, Jody runs from the woods into a street only to be run over by a British police vehicle, which then flushes out the IRA compound. Fergus escapes to London, where he's wanted by the law for Jody's kidnapping and also by his former girlfriend, IRA operative Jude (Miranda Richardson), who thinks he knows too much to fall into the hands of the British authorities. Good to his word, Fergus tracks down Dil, and soon the two outcasts find themselves entering into a love affair, although Fergus discovers that Dil is not the sort of woman he thought she was. Writer/director Neil Jordan won an Academy Award for his screenplay; the title song, which was a U.K. hit for Dave Berry in 1965, was re-recorded for the film by one-time Culture Club vocalist Boy George with backing by the Pet Shop Boys. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Stephen Rea, Jaye Davidson, (more)
Another of writer/director Ken Russell's D.H. Lawrence adaptations, Lady Chatterley (an amalgam of three Lawrence novels) was first shown as a British TV miniseries on BBC1 from June 6 to 27, 1993. In recounting the familiar details of young, bored Lady Chatterley (Joely Richardson), her elderly, infirm husband (James Wilby), and her hot-blooded stable-groom lover, Manners (Sean Bean), Russell took the opportunity to both celebrate and savage the British upper classes of the 1920s. One brief sequence of full frontal nudity caused a minor scandal in Britain, though by Ken Russell standards the scene was a model of taste and decorum. After its initial TV run, Lady Chatterley was edited down from 220 to 110 minutes and released theatrically in the United States. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joely Richardson, Sean Bean, (more)
Director James Ivory brings his subdued, "Masterpiece Theater" style to a forbidden subject -- homosexual love. Maurice is based on E.M. Forster's suppressed 1914 novel that was held back from publication until after his death. The film takes place at Cambridge, before World War I, when homosexuality was outlawed in Great Britain. Clive (Hugh Grant), an aristocratic Englishman with a life of privilege, suddenly shocks his close friend Maurice (James Wilby) by declaring his love for him. Maurice is initially stunned by the pronouncement, but in the end finds himself giving Clive a passionate kiss and telling him that he loves him as well. Clive, in the stiff-upper-lip British manner, considers their love to be more of an intellectual concept, but Maurice becomes passionate about the affair. Clive, afraid of being exposed as a homosexual, backs off and breaks up with Maurice for marriage, family, and politics. Maurice is crestfallen, but then he has a passionate affair with Clive's gamekeeper, Scudder (Rupert Graves), and Maurice and Scudder decide to risk their reputations by openly living together as lovers. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- James Wilby, Hugh Grant, (more)
