Joan O'Hara Movies

This Irish comedy focuses on a woman named Ellie, who despite her family reputation as the wild free spirit, is left in charge of her sister Kate's retirement home when Kate is called home to care for their ailing mother. Ellie already has an aversion to responsibility, and she's definitely not prepared for the downright rude "hardcore" residents at Woodlands rest home. Strangely enough, however, Ellie and the people in her care begin to learn from each other, and her unexpected journey doesn't seem like such a terrible burden after all. ~ Cammila Collar, Rovi

There are those who say that Ireland is comprised of five provinces: four on the earthly plane and one in the passionate domain of magic and endless possibilities. It is the latter province wherein true love abides. This hypnotic, surreal fairy tale in its latter stages makes great fun of Alfred Hitchcock's landmark film Psycho. Introverted, socially isolated Timmy works by day as the keeper of a guest house and by night as an aspiring writer. He lives with his mentally unbalanced mother and dreams of a romantic involvement with Ireland's homely lady Prime Minister, a secret he shares only with his slightly off-kilter psychiatrist. Timmy loses his guest house when a major motorway is constructed nearby. One day, however, he is visited by Marcel, a time-travelling Spaniard who has a profound effect on Timmy's life and upon the lives of those around him. The changes begin when Timmy goes to an international writing conference and becomes a student of sophisticated, beautiful Belgian writer Diana de Brie. She pooh-poohs the naive Timmy's rather provincial work, but ends up falling in love with him. Thanks to the magical Marcel, Timmy later has Diana come to Ireland to visit his guest house where she discovers herself in an increasingly weird situation. It is in the story's latter stages that the spoof of Psycho begins. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

In this epic Ron Howard film, Joseph Donelly (Tom Cruise) is an impoverished 19th-century Irish tenant farmer who has recently lost both his father and his home to the agents of his unscrupulous landlord. On a mission to avenge his family's injustice at the hands of the ruthless land baron Joseph meets the landlord's daughter and the two run off to America together where the girl expects to claim a piece of land for herself in the Oklahoma Land Rush. After she is robbed on the boat that carries them to America, they arrive with nary a penny and struggle just to keep their heads above water in the slums of Boston. After a series of serious set-backs they do eventually work their way out West, where Joseph must fight to realize his dream and claim a piece of the American Dream for himself -- and where they finally acknowledge their love for each other. Shot in wide-screen Panavision, the movie was filmed on-location in Ireland and Montana. ~ Iotis Erlewine, Rovi

Irish author Hugh Leonard's play Home Before Night was the basis of Da. Martin Sheen plays an Irish/ American playright living in New York. No matter how much he's assimilated himself, Sheen cannot escape the influence of his deceased adoptive father (Barnard Hughes). The writer has several heated confrontations with the "ghosts" of his father and mother (Doreen Hepburn), as well as with his own adolescent self (Karl Hayden). Sheen comes to realize that his own success was in part sparked by the failures of his "Da", a gardener who spent his life speaking in empty aphorisms and wishing he were someone else. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this gently humorous farce, an unwed Irish mother who has six children by some of the town's finest fathers finds herself bedeviled by the townsfolk who find her a liability to their sterling reputations. They try different ploys to get her to pack up her illicit clan and move. Then they pool their resources and buy the woman a farm far away from town, but before they have to move, mysterious Fate intervenes, and in the end all involved are happy, including the free-spirited young mother. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi