Chicago – I often find that the most interesting characters in a ghost story are not the ghosts themselves, but the humans who encounter them. Ghosts are reflections of a past we are unwilling to depart from, even if it halts us from entering the future. It’s a consolation for us to believe that our departed loved ones view us as their “unfinished business.”
Like “The Sixth Sense,” “The Eclipse” is primarily a human drama with occasional jolts of chilling horror. It centers on a character we’ve all seen before, the haunted widower grieving over his wife’s death, yet the filmmakers refuse to turn him into a cliché. He’s played by Ciarán Hinds, one of the finest and most underrated character actors in recent cinema, who’s popped up in everything from “There Will Be Blood” to “In Bruges,” and will soon be known to American audiences...
Like “The Sixth Sense,” “The Eclipse” is primarily a human drama with occasional jolts of chilling horror. It centers on a character we’ve all seen before, the haunted widower grieving over his wife’s death, yet the filmmakers refuse to turn him into a cliché. He’s played by Ciarán Hinds, one of the finest and most underrated character actors in recent cinema, who’s popped up in everything from “There Will Be Blood” to “In Bruges,” and will soon be known to American audiences...
- 6/29/2010
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
Conor McPherson loves the supernatural. He adores ghosts and zombies. Some have even made it into his recent film The Eclipse, a drama that is not quite horror. Here again we must engage in the taxonomy debate. Horror generally focuses on the sense and degree of dread injected into a storyline, visuals, and sound. But where are the borders of horror? And what becomes of the films that float on the edge, like this very film we have here? How does the fan or marketer address them?
I believe both can enjoy The Eclipse (review here), but it merely bears only some of the markings of the beast. As a horror fan I expect more and want to be overwhelmed and hurt by vicious images. This film is quaint. Its lovely undead are reminiscent of the creatures in Luis Buñuel's The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie -- another film...
I believe both can enjoy The Eclipse (review here), but it merely bears only some of the markings of the beast. As a horror fan I expect more and want to be overwhelmed and hurt by vicious images. This film is quaint. Its lovely undead are reminiscent of the creatures in Luis Buñuel's The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie -- another film...
- 3/29/2010
- by Heather Buckley
- DreadCentral.com
(Ciaran Hinds in The Eclipse, above.)
By Terry Keefe
“Starring Ciaran Hinds.” It’s about time.
The very talented Belfast-born actor has been the lead in numerous prominent stage productions over his career, but on-screen, he is better known for some of the best cinematic supporting work of the past ten years: as the under boss of sorts to Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood; the slightly nerdy Mossad agent who falls for the absolutely wrong undercover woman in Munich; the President of Russia in The Sum of All Fears; and as an imposing, regal, but also very human, Julius Caesar in the HBO’s “Rome,” amongst many others. With The Eclipse, Hinds steps up to the top of the marquee, and the new suit fits him well. I just hope that he doesn’t swear off supporting roles in the future now, because Hinds has added an extra...
By Terry Keefe
“Starring Ciaran Hinds.” It’s about time.
The very talented Belfast-born actor has been the lead in numerous prominent stage productions over his career, but on-screen, he is better known for some of the best cinematic supporting work of the past ten years: as the under boss of sorts to Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood; the slightly nerdy Mossad agent who falls for the absolutely wrong undercover woman in Munich; the President of Russia in The Sum of All Fears; and as an imposing, regal, but also very human, Julius Caesar in the HBO’s “Rome,” amongst many others. With The Eclipse, Hinds steps up to the top of the marquee, and the new suit fits him well. I just hope that he doesn’t swear off supporting roles in the future now, because Hinds has added an extra...
- 3/26/2010
- by The Hollywood Interview.com
- The Hollywood Interview
Returning to feature-film directing after a six-year absence, Irish playwright Conor McPherson (The Seafarer, Shining City) drew heavy interest at last year’s Tribeca Film Festival when he unveiled The Eclipse, a subtle, emotionally restrained drama of male grief shot through with lightning-flash bursts of supernatural horror. Based on a short story by co-writer Billy Roche, the low-gear genre mash-up might play as a mere curiosity were it not for Best Actor winner Ciarán Hinds, whose solemn turn as a widower with literary aspirations gives the film a quiet center of gravity. And in coarser hands, McPherson’s abrupt tonal shifts could have overwhelmed or cheapened what’s essentially a minor-key story of post-bereavement reckoning. Michael...
- 3/24/2010
- by Damon Smith
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
The Eclipse is a small, brooding Irish film that defies genre. Adapted from a short story by writer Billy Roche, it is, as director and screenwriter Conor McPherson says, "a love story, it's a ghost story, it's scary but it's moving, it's funny." Ciaran Hinds, the award-winning Irish actor of the stage and screen, stars as Michael Farr, a mourning widower with two small children and pipe dreams of being a writer. He helps organize and volunteers at a yearly literature festival in the small town of Cobh, and while he helps out a visiting author, Lena Morelle (Iben Hjejle), he thinks he's found someone who might understand just what he's been going through. Morelle writes about the supernatural, and unfortunately, Farr has been experiencing a bit of that in his life, or so he suspects. She, however, is involved with another visiting author, Nicholas Holden, played by Aidan Quinn,...
- 3/23/2010
- TribecaFilm.com
One of the movies that really took us by surprise at last year's Tribeca Film Festival was Conor McPherson's The Eclipse , a film set in a small Irish seaside town that mixes genres in a flud way we haven't seen very often in recent years. McPherson, an Irish playwright, essentially adapted the short story "Table Manners" from Billy Roche's collection "Tales from Rainwater Pond" and took it in a very different for the film. Ciaran Hinds, who also starred in McPherson's Broadway play "The Seafarer," plays Michael Farr, a lonely widower and father of two still not quite over the death of his wife, who is assigned to drive British horror author Lena Morelle (Iben Hjejle) around during the town's annual literary fair. Being that Michael has started...
- 3/23/2010
- Comingsoon.net
Conor McPherson's The Eclipse is a gem: a smart, deliberately paced tale of mourning and renewal, a ghost story with a few moments of terror and well-observed emotional truths. Based on a short story by Billy Roche (and cowritten by Roche and McPherson), The Eclipse is about Michael Farr (Ciaran Hinds), a widower in the Irish town of Cobh, where he lives with his two pre-teen children He teaches woodworking at the local school and, on the weekend in which the film is set, is serving as a volunteer driver for the local literary festival. But Michael is troubled in ways he can't define. He hears and sees things in the drafty old townhouse where he lives, though he isn't sure whether they're ghosts or something else. The fact that the first one he sees looks like his father-in-law, Malachy (Jim...
- 3/23/2010
- by Marshall Fine
- Huffington Post
Conor McPherson's Eclipse is part love story and part ghost story, about a widower named Michael Farr (Ciarán Hinds) who isn't sure if he's having terrifying nightmares or if his house is actually haunted. Thanks to a literary festival taking place in his hometown, he has the chance to consult with Lena Morelle, a supernatural-fiction writer (Iben Hjejle, High Fidelity), to whom he's immediately drawn. Hinds explains the subtle emotions behind his character's visitations. Q: The idea for this film came together while you were working with Conor McPherson on Broadway, in The Seafarer.A: Conor's work often has a supernatural, otherworldly element to it, and his friend Billy Roche had written this short story called "Table Manners" -- and, as usual, I can't figure out for the life of me why it has that title. But Billy asked Conor what he thought, and Conor was taken by the...
- 3/22/2010
- AMC News Interviews
The winners of the 7th Annual Irish Film & Television Awards have been announced at a gala ceremony held in Dublin.s Burlington Hotel. "The Hurt Locker" was given the Best International Film award over "Avatar," "Let the Right One In," and "Up."
Meryl Streep won the Pantene International Actress Award for "It's Complicated" while Robert Downey Jr. won Best International Actor for "Sherlock Holmes."
Winners of the 7th Annual Irish Film & Television Awards (Film Categories):
Film
The Eclipse - Robert Walpole, Rebecca O'Flanagan (Treasure Entertainment)
Director Film
Jim Sheridan - Brothers (Lionsgate)
Script Film
The Eclipse (Treasure Entertainment) -- Billy Roche, Conor McPherson
Actor in a Lead Role . Film
Colin Farrell - Ondine (Octagon Films)
Actress in a Lead Role . Film
Saoirse Ronan - The Lovely Bones (Paramount)
Actor in a Supporting Role . Film
Aidan Quinn - The Eclipse (Treasure Entertainment)
Actress in a Supporting Role . Film
Dervla Kirwan...
Meryl Streep won the Pantene International Actress Award for "It's Complicated" while Robert Downey Jr. won Best International Actor for "Sherlock Holmes."
Winners of the 7th Annual Irish Film & Television Awards (Film Categories):
Film
The Eclipse - Robert Walpole, Rebecca O'Flanagan (Treasure Entertainment)
Director Film
Jim Sheridan - Brothers (Lionsgate)
Script Film
The Eclipse (Treasure Entertainment) -- Billy Roche, Conor McPherson
Actor in a Lead Role . Film
Colin Farrell - Ondine (Octagon Films)
Actress in a Lead Role . Film
Saoirse Ronan - The Lovely Bones (Paramount)
Actor in a Supporting Role . Film
Aidan Quinn - The Eclipse (Treasure Entertainment)
Actress in a Supporting Role . Film
Dervla Kirwan...
- 2/21/2010
- by Manny
- Manny the Movie Guy
The winners of the 7th Annual Irish Film & Television Awards have been announced at a gala ceremony held in Dublin's Burlington Hotel on 20th of February 2010. 'The Eclipse' was named Best Film, also picking up IFTAs for Actor in a Supporting Role Film Aidan Quinn and Script Film Conor McPherson & Billy Roche. Actors Colin Farrell and Dervla Kirwan won the Actor in a Lead Role Film and Actress in a Supporting Role Film awards for their performances in Neil Jordan's 'Ondine'. Irish talent working in the international arena were also well recognised at the ceremony with Jim Sheridan announced the winner of the Director Film Award for 'Brothers', and actress Saoirse Ronan winning the Actress in a Lead Role Film Ifta for her performance in Peter Jackson's 'The Lovely Bones'.
- 2/21/2010
- IFTN
The Holmes and Rahe Stress Measurement chart indicates degrees of stress from 1 to 100, where, for example, increased arguments with a spouse measures 35 and a marital separation scores 65. The highest level of stress is death of a spouse, which rates the full 100, though one could argue that the death of a child is off the charts. Two of the characters in Conor McPherson.s ghost-and-love film are afflicted with top scores. An aging Malachy McNeill (Jim Norton), now in a nursing home, suffers the loss of his daughter, Eleanor. McNeill.s son-in-law, Michael Farr (Ciarán Hinds), must now provide for his young son Thomas (Eanna Hardwicke) and daughter Sarah (Hannah Lynch), without help. Since Michael.s wife died just three years back, he is impacted enough by the loss to experience hallucinations, ghosts if you will; one, the scary kind, is of his father-in-law who screams and looks enraged; the other is of his departed wife,...
- 1/15/2010
- Arizona Reporter
Conor McPherson insists it's his lead Ciarán Hinds who provides "instant soul" to his latest film "The Eclipse," but it's the 37-year-old Irish playwright who's responsible for the ghosts. As has been his habit in his acclaimed plays like as "Shining City" and "The Seafarer," McPherson once again conjures up the supernatural for a love story about a grieving widower (Hinds) who finds a connection with a writer of ghost stories (Iben Hjejle) when he volunteers at a literary festival in the small Irish town of Cobh, serving as a driver to a loutish bestselling author (Aidan Quinn) who's equally entranced by her. While the film's gravitas and unexpected wit has led to that even more elusive spirit -- buzz of a distribution deal -- McPherson's preoccupation with ghosts even prompted fellow playwright John Patrick Shanley to finally ask about it during the Q & A that followed the film's premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival.
- 5/1/2009
- by Stephen Saito
- ifc.com
The press kits that accompany most films usually aren't very useful beyond telling you how to spell the actors' names, but the one for The Eclipse was insightful. The film is an unusual mixture of somber character drama and supernatural horror, and the statement from director Conor McPherson confirms something I'd suspected from watching it: the supernatural elements were wedged into the screenplay after everything else.
McPherson says he started with a screenplay based on a short story by Billy Roche but was stymied in his efforts to make it work as a film until he came up with the ghosty stuff. It's a shame (or, rather, it's a shame that it's so obvious), because films that combine these two disparate genres successfully are rare. And The Eclipse, even with its flaws, is still a respectable effort, with sensitive performances and shrewd direction. It just doesn't live up to its promise.
McPherson says he started with a screenplay based on a short story by Billy Roche but was stymied in his efforts to make it work as a film until he came up with the ghosty stuff. It's a shame (or, rather, it's a shame that it's so obvious), because films that combine these two disparate genres successfully are rare. And The Eclipse, even with its flaws, is still a respectable effort, with sensitive performances and shrewd direction. It just doesn't live up to its promise.
- 4/29/2009
- by Eric D. Snider
- Cinematical
It's a daunting challenge for an actor to play a character who is considered to be a consummate salesman, the kind of guy who can sell you the shirt on your back and make you smile while he's doing it.
Stephen Rea, playing the title role of a small-time huckster, has that assignment in the new film by Irish director Gillies Mackinnon ("The Playboys", "Small Faces"), and he lives up to it beautifully. As his employer and ultimate nemesis, Richard Harris uses his distinctive voice and authority to equally good effect. Would that the film itself were so compelling.
Trojan Eddie (Rea) makes his living working for John Power (Harris), the leader of local travelers -- con men -- (their American cousins were recently depicted in the Bill Paxton starrer "Traveller"), and in his spare time he sells assorted goods, whatever he can get his hands on, from the back of his van. A lifelong loser, Eddie has been in jail for a botched robbery attempt, and his marriage is on the rocks -- although his ex-wife does show up periodically to crash on his couch. Struggling to raise his two young daughters alone, he takes his relationship with the loving Betty (Brid Brennan) for granted.
Eddie's real troubles begin when Power becomes obsessed with Kathleen (Aislin McGuckin), a much younger traveler, and asks her to marry him. She accepts, even though she is also secretly seeing Power's young nephew, Dermot (Stuart Townsend). Immediately after the wedding, the duplicitous pair skip out with the large cash dowry, and Power dispatches his thugs to track them down. Eddie becomes caught in the middle, torn between his fear of Power and his desire to partake in some of that dowry money.
There are inevitably violent and tragic results, but Eddie manages to have one last laugh at his former employer.
The very Irish-flavored screenplay by Billy Roche contains two memorable lead characters, but it is also diffuse and meandering, and the scenes never quite carry either the comic or dramatic intensity they should. The film seems to shift uncomfortably between violent melodrama and gentle humor, and the exceedingly mild results don't bode well for U.S. boxoffice, despite the presence of the two stars. Rea is at his charming, hangdog best here, though, and Harris, who has been on a cinematic roll in recent years, is equally fine.
TROJAN EDDIE
Castle Hill Prods.
Director Gillies Mackinnon
Producer Emma Burge
Co-producer Seamus Byrne
Screenplay Billy Roche
Executive producers Rod Stoneman,
Alan J. Wands, Kevin Menton, Nigel Warren Green
Director of photography John deBorman
Editor Scott Thomas
Music John Keane
Color/stereo
Cast:
Trojan Eddie Stephen Rea
John Power Richard Harris
Dermot Stuart Townsend
Kathleen Aislin McGuckin
Ginger Brendan Gleeson
Betty Brid Brennan
Raymie Sean McGinley
Running time -- 105 minutes
No MPAA rating...
Stephen Rea, playing the title role of a small-time huckster, has that assignment in the new film by Irish director Gillies Mackinnon ("The Playboys", "Small Faces"), and he lives up to it beautifully. As his employer and ultimate nemesis, Richard Harris uses his distinctive voice and authority to equally good effect. Would that the film itself were so compelling.
Trojan Eddie (Rea) makes his living working for John Power (Harris), the leader of local travelers -- con men -- (their American cousins were recently depicted in the Bill Paxton starrer "Traveller"), and in his spare time he sells assorted goods, whatever he can get his hands on, from the back of his van. A lifelong loser, Eddie has been in jail for a botched robbery attempt, and his marriage is on the rocks -- although his ex-wife does show up periodically to crash on his couch. Struggling to raise his two young daughters alone, he takes his relationship with the loving Betty (Brid Brennan) for granted.
Eddie's real troubles begin when Power becomes obsessed with Kathleen (Aislin McGuckin), a much younger traveler, and asks her to marry him. She accepts, even though she is also secretly seeing Power's young nephew, Dermot (Stuart Townsend). Immediately after the wedding, the duplicitous pair skip out with the large cash dowry, and Power dispatches his thugs to track them down. Eddie becomes caught in the middle, torn between his fear of Power and his desire to partake in some of that dowry money.
There are inevitably violent and tragic results, but Eddie manages to have one last laugh at his former employer.
The very Irish-flavored screenplay by Billy Roche contains two memorable lead characters, but it is also diffuse and meandering, and the scenes never quite carry either the comic or dramatic intensity they should. The film seems to shift uncomfortably between violent melodrama and gentle humor, and the exceedingly mild results don't bode well for U.S. boxoffice, despite the presence of the two stars. Rea is at his charming, hangdog best here, though, and Harris, who has been on a cinematic roll in recent years, is equally fine.
TROJAN EDDIE
Castle Hill Prods.
Director Gillies Mackinnon
Producer Emma Burge
Co-producer Seamus Byrne
Screenplay Billy Roche
Executive producers Rod Stoneman,
Alan J. Wands, Kevin Menton, Nigel Warren Green
Director of photography John deBorman
Editor Scott Thomas
Music John Keane
Color/stereo
Cast:
Trojan Eddie Stephen Rea
John Power Richard Harris
Dermot Stuart Townsend
Kathleen Aislin McGuckin
Ginger Brendan Gleeson
Betty Brid Brennan
Raymie Sean McGinley
Running time -- 105 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 8/28/1997
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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