If you sit down to watch Nora and expect to find some insight into James Joyce, you can forget it. Instead, you will find a studied "lushness" of filming, with vague, disconnected scenes that hint at what is going on. Romantic? I suppose. That would make it a chick flick. The limited use of nudity and sexual simulations would make it provocative. (But was there any uproar about the movie? I think not -- just mark it R and move on.) Joyce's writing is given only slight mention. We see he is writing, we see a publisher rejecting his work (which one? who knows? Well, it was "The Dubliners," of course, with specific objection to the story "The Dead.") We see Nora and James fighting over ... well, various things ... and his throwing the manuscript into the fire. Nora retrieves it, badly burnt but partially reconstructible. And what work was this? You won't know from the movie. And I'm not telling either! (Look it up.) It's like this throughout. It isn't made clear exactly when Nora and James were married, but there is a cutesy moment in the film where Nora slips on a wedding ring. From that we are supposed to realize that they are finally married. An unsuspecting viewer might think they were married earlier. Maybe not. Why knows? As my wife says, "I don't care. It was an exciting movie." Just let it roll over you, enjoy what you can, and move on. (The children are adorable, however.)
