More a gallery of beautifully shot cinematic tableaus from the lives of turn-of-the-20th-century rebel lovers Nora Barnacle and James Joyce than a satisfying -- or even comprehensible -- biographical exercise, this Irish/Italian/German co-production arrives with no fanfare in a few local theaters for a perfunctory release via Andora Pictures.
Directed and co-written by Pat Murphy, "Nora" has a tough time, like most of its ilk, making a difficult genius like Joyce (even when played by Ewan McGregor) into an irresistible movie character. Murphy co-wrote the script, based on the biography by Brenda Maddox, with Gerard Stembridge.
While focusing on Susan Lynch ("Waking Ned Devine") as Joyce's lifelong love -- a Galway native who comes from an abusive home life and meets him in Dublin -- is a promising angle coming from a woman filmmaker, "Nora" is still a muddy tale of sex, love, obsession, jealousy, cruelty and abandonment that can keep one at a distance.
The film's atmosphere, including the terrific period sets and costumes, is a real turn-on, in a moody kind of way, and hotel maid Nora and budding writer Joyce's first late-night stroll, which leads to a lusty embrace in the shadows, is a racy start to their affair. She's the take-charge type, and he falls in love instantly. Because of his frustration over not being published in Ireland, a foreign job offer and her "secret" past, they move to Trieste, Italy, and live like a married couple.
Their landlady kicks them out when Nora becomes pregnant, but Joyce's erratic behavior is the real problem. Like a drunk and his moods, Nora and Joyce's love for each other shifts from bitter scenes of verbal fighting to genuinely warm moments when drinking and singing bring them together. She has plenty of untapped love and affection but is fatefully attached to a man who pushes her away.
With a few visits to the sunny seashore and many train trips, "Nora" spans several years and reaches a high point when the lead recalls a former lover while watching a silent Italian movie and tells Joyce. He turns it into the short story "The Dead", and she is deeply hurt. Indeed, Joyce seems to relish punishing her with insinuations that she's a tramp and even prodding her to have an affair with an innocently friendly newspaper editor (Roberto Citran).
During one stretch of separation, the lovers write erotic letters to each other, and the scenario indulges in a flurry of masturbation scenes, but even two children, peacekeeping missions by Joyce's younger brother (Peter McDonald) and Joyce's finally choosing to stop believing Nora detractors like Cosgrave (Daragh Kelly) are not enough to end hostilities. By the film's upbeat end, the viewer has learned a little about one of the world's great writers and earned a pint to unwind afterward.
NORA
Andora Pictures
Natural Nylon Entertainment
Director: Pat Murphy
Screenwriters: Pat Murphy, Gerard Stembridge
Producers: Bradley Adams, Damon Bryant, Tracey Seaward
Executive producer: Guy Collins
Director of photography: Jean Francois Robin
Production designer: Alan Macdonald
Editor: Pia Di Ciaula
Costume designer: Consolata Boyle
Music: Stanislas Syrewicz
Color/stereo
Cast:
Nora Barnacle: Susan Lynch
James Joyce: Ewan McGregor
Stanislas Joyce: Peter McDonald
Roberto Prezioso: Roberto Citran
Cosgrave: Daragh Kelly
Running time -- 106 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
Directed and co-written by Pat Murphy, "Nora" has a tough time, like most of its ilk, making a difficult genius like Joyce (even when played by Ewan McGregor) into an irresistible movie character. Murphy co-wrote the script, based on the biography by Brenda Maddox, with Gerard Stembridge.
While focusing on Susan Lynch ("Waking Ned Devine") as Joyce's lifelong love -- a Galway native who comes from an abusive home life and meets him in Dublin -- is a promising angle coming from a woman filmmaker, "Nora" is still a muddy tale of sex, love, obsession, jealousy, cruelty and abandonment that can keep one at a distance.
The film's atmosphere, including the terrific period sets and costumes, is a real turn-on, in a moody kind of way, and hotel maid Nora and budding writer Joyce's first late-night stroll, which leads to a lusty embrace in the shadows, is a racy start to their affair. She's the take-charge type, and he falls in love instantly. Because of his frustration over not being published in Ireland, a foreign job offer and her "secret" past, they move to Trieste, Italy, and live like a married couple.
Their landlady kicks them out when Nora becomes pregnant, but Joyce's erratic behavior is the real problem. Like a drunk and his moods, Nora and Joyce's love for each other shifts from bitter scenes of verbal fighting to genuinely warm moments when drinking and singing bring them together. She has plenty of untapped love and affection but is fatefully attached to a man who pushes her away.
With a few visits to the sunny seashore and many train trips, "Nora" spans several years and reaches a high point when the lead recalls a former lover while watching a silent Italian movie and tells Joyce. He turns it into the short story "The Dead", and she is deeply hurt. Indeed, Joyce seems to relish punishing her with insinuations that she's a tramp and even prodding her to have an affair with an innocently friendly newspaper editor (Roberto Citran).
During one stretch of separation, the lovers write erotic letters to each other, and the scenario indulges in a flurry of masturbation scenes, but even two children, peacekeeping missions by Joyce's younger brother (Peter McDonald) and Joyce's finally choosing to stop believing Nora detractors like Cosgrave (Daragh Kelly) are not enough to end hostilities. By the film's upbeat end, the viewer has learned a little about one of the world's great writers and earned a pint to unwind afterward.
NORA
Andora Pictures
Natural Nylon Entertainment
Director: Pat Murphy
Screenwriters: Pat Murphy, Gerard Stembridge
Producers: Bradley Adams, Damon Bryant, Tracey Seaward
Executive producer: Guy Collins
Director of photography: Jean Francois Robin
Production designer: Alan Macdonald
Editor: Pia Di Ciaula
Costume designer: Consolata Boyle
Music: Stanislas Syrewicz
Color/stereo
Cast:
Nora Barnacle: Susan Lynch
James Joyce: Ewan McGregor
Stanislas Joyce: Peter McDonald
Roberto Prezioso: Roberto Citran
Cosgrave: Daragh Kelly
Running time -- 106 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
More a gallery of beautifully shot cinematic tableaus from the lives of turn-of-the-20th-century rebel lovers Nora Barnacle and James Joyce than a satisfying -- or even comprehensible -- biographical exercise, this Irish/Italian/German co-production arrives with no fanfare in a few local theaters for a perfunctory release via Andora Pictures.
Directed and co-written by Pat Murphy, "Nora" has a tough time, like most of its ilk, making a difficult genius like Joyce (even when played by Ewan McGregor) into an irresistible movie character. Murphy co-wrote the script, based on the biography by Brenda Maddox, with Gerard Stembridge.
While focusing on Susan Lynch ("Waking Ned Devine") as Joyce's lifelong love -- a Galway native who comes from an abusive home life and meets him in Dublin -- is a promising angle coming from a woman filmmaker, "Nora" is still a muddy tale of sex, love, obsession, jealousy, cruelty and abandonment that can keep one at a distance.
The film's atmosphere, including the terrific period sets and costumes, is a real turn-on, in a moody kind of way, and hotel maid Nora and budding writer Joyce's first late-night stroll, which leads to a lusty embrace in the shadows, is a racy start to their affair. She's the take-charge type, and he falls in love instantly. Because of his frustration over not being published in Ireland, a foreign job offer and her "secret" past, they move to Trieste, Italy, and live like a married couple.
Their landlady kicks them out when Nora becomes pregnant, but Joyce's erratic behavior is the real problem. Like a drunk and his moods, Nora and Joyce's love for each other shifts from bitter scenes of verbal fighting to genuinely warm moments when drinking and singing bring them together. She has plenty of untapped love and affection but is fatefully attached to a man who pushes her away.
With a few visits to the sunny seashore and many train trips, "Nora" spans several years and reaches a high point when the lead recalls a former lover while watching a silent Italian movie and tells Joyce. He turns it into the short story "The Dead", and she is deeply hurt. Indeed, Joyce seems to relish punishing her with insinuations that she's a tramp and even prodding her to have an affair with an innocently friendly newspaper editor (Roberto Citran).
During one stretch of separation, the lovers write erotic letters to each other, and the scenario indulges in a flurry of masturbation scenes, but even two children, peacekeeping missions by Joyce's younger brother (Peter McDonald) and Joyce's finally choosing to stop believing Nora detractors like Cosgrave (Daragh Kelly) are not enough to end hostilities. By the film's upbeat end, the viewer has learned a little about one of the world's great writers and earned a pint to unwind afterward.
NORA
Andora Pictures
Natural Nylon Entertainment
Director: Pat Murphy
Screenwriters: Pat Murphy, Gerard Stembridge
Producers: Bradley Adams, Damon Bryant, Tracey Seaward
Executive producer: Guy Collins
Director of photography: Jean Francois Robin
Production designer: Alan Macdonald
Editor: Pia Di Ciaula
Costume designer: Consolata Boyle
Music: Stanislas Syrewicz
Color/stereo
Cast:
Nora Barnacle: Susan Lynch
James Joyce: Ewan McGregor
Stanislas Joyce: Peter McDonald
Roberto Prezioso: Roberto Citran
Cosgrave: Daragh Kelly
Running time -- 106 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
Directed and co-written by Pat Murphy, "Nora" has a tough time, like most of its ilk, making a difficult genius like Joyce (even when played by Ewan McGregor) into an irresistible movie character. Murphy co-wrote the script, based on the biography by Brenda Maddox, with Gerard Stembridge.
While focusing on Susan Lynch ("Waking Ned Devine") as Joyce's lifelong love -- a Galway native who comes from an abusive home life and meets him in Dublin -- is a promising angle coming from a woman filmmaker, "Nora" is still a muddy tale of sex, love, obsession, jealousy, cruelty and abandonment that can keep one at a distance.
The film's atmosphere, including the terrific period sets and costumes, is a real turn-on, in a moody kind of way, and hotel maid Nora and budding writer Joyce's first late-night stroll, which leads to a lusty embrace in the shadows, is a racy start to their affair. She's the take-charge type, and he falls in love instantly. Because of his frustration over not being published in Ireland, a foreign job offer and her "secret" past, they move to Trieste, Italy, and live like a married couple.
Their landlady kicks them out when Nora becomes pregnant, but Joyce's erratic behavior is the real problem. Like a drunk and his moods, Nora and Joyce's love for each other shifts from bitter scenes of verbal fighting to genuinely warm moments when drinking and singing bring them together. She has plenty of untapped love and affection but is fatefully attached to a man who pushes her away.
With a few visits to the sunny seashore and many train trips, "Nora" spans several years and reaches a high point when the lead recalls a former lover while watching a silent Italian movie and tells Joyce. He turns it into the short story "The Dead", and she is deeply hurt. Indeed, Joyce seems to relish punishing her with insinuations that she's a tramp and even prodding her to have an affair with an innocently friendly newspaper editor (Roberto Citran).
During one stretch of separation, the lovers write erotic letters to each other, and the scenario indulges in a flurry of masturbation scenes, but even two children, peacekeeping missions by Joyce's younger brother (Peter McDonald) and Joyce's finally choosing to stop believing Nora detractors like Cosgrave (Daragh Kelly) are not enough to end hostilities. By the film's upbeat end, the viewer has learned a little about one of the world's great writers and earned a pint to unwind afterward.
NORA
Andora Pictures
Natural Nylon Entertainment
Director: Pat Murphy
Screenwriters: Pat Murphy, Gerard Stembridge
Producers: Bradley Adams, Damon Bryant, Tracey Seaward
Executive producer: Guy Collins
Director of photography: Jean Francois Robin
Production designer: Alan Macdonald
Editor: Pia Di Ciaula
Costume designer: Consolata Boyle
Music: Stanislas Syrewicz
Color/stereo
Cast:
Nora Barnacle: Susan Lynch
James Joyce: Ewan McGregor
Stanislas Joyce: Peter McDonald
Roberto Prezioso: Roberto Citran
Cosgrave: Daragh Kelly
Running time -- 106 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.