User Reviews

Ewan McGregor, at almost 30, is playing a 22 year old James Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) from the moment Joyce meets Nora in Dublin, his future companion and later in life wife and mother of his 2 children. The movie depicts only the first 5-7 years of their tumultuous, tempestuous, sexually charged, possessive and jealousy filled relationship. It is the time when Joyce was struggling to get his novel 'Dubliners' printed which eventually did happen in 1914. It is the story of the young couple's self-imposed exile to the continent: to Trieste, today in Italy. The dramatisation is influenced by Joyce's short story 'The Dead' which is a novelette about a married couple. A passionate costume drama, but at times quite melancholic which is underlined by the dim/sepia cinematography.

Not many literary references of his published work however insight into the lovers erotic correspondence, the epistolary 'love-making' they had when ever they were separated. I thought that was extremely stimulating! Therefore, I decided to read Joyce's love-letters-to- Nora, rather than re-trying for the Xth time 'Ulysses' which I somehow never manage to finish.

Ewan McGregor is sincerely a brilliant actor, and as a Scotsman he pretty much fooled me with his strong Irish accent, but then again, there were moments, I would have loved to have English subtitles for my own untrained ears.

Historically accurate, biographically a bit amputated, but that only hardcore Joyce's fans will notice.

Verbally and visually the movie is sexually explicit, so for me it's 18+.

This is a movie for anyone who read Joyce or is into emotionally charged period dramas. —

I was lucky enough to see this at a small time premiere in Sydney and Ewan turned up as he is out here making some big time sci-fi movie. Anyway my first reaction to this movie was that I thought that it moved with a pace that was too disjointed and that we were confronted with too much intimate detail before we had a chance to understand anything about the characters. Afterwards we heard from Ewan and from his expressions of how it was a glimpse at a life not a tale and how that we are supposed to just capture moments in what was a very complex and unique relationship that Joyce had with nora that on further thought I have come to see more into what the film was trying to do so on second viewing I was able to understand I suppose more of the workings of the mind that was Joyce I highly recommend this film to anyone with a passion not only for Joyce's work but anyone who has an interest in the personal life of a creative mind. Watch it twice for even more.

Joyce is certainly not my favorite writer. His life was spent in a tirade against the land of his birth, which he felt had betrayed him and under-appreciated him. Then, he went on to write some work that most of us think is great. His relationship with his common-law wife, Nora is the focus of this film and their tempestuous relationship provides most of the action. There can be some critique about Joyce, about film-making, about writing, direction, etc., but basically this is a story about two essentially neurotic people. Ewan McGregor brings a brooding, doubting, jealous and unsecure Joyce to the screen while Susan Lynch provides the fiery, sexy female component this relationship. And, that's that. As it has been observed and commented by other reviewers here, there's damn little about the writer found in this film. Too bad, I suppose. It's always nice to hear about how writers write what they do, but you have to be damn familiar with Joyce to make that leap to see Molly Bloom come out of Nora.

I bought this DVD, expecting the always fascinating work of Ewan Mcgregor. When I watched it, I was interested in the characters, wanting to know more. By the end of the film I was disappointed in the story line. They were together, then they weren't. He couldn't live with out her and all is happy again. It was two people that were the perfect couple but were absolutely horrible for each other. I did like the fact that it ended with a laugh, though.

I was so excited when I finally saw this film available in video. I had heard about it when it opened in the UK two years ago and was disappointed that it never opened in theaters that were close to me.

After seeing it, I'm not sure I'm as impressed with it as I would have liked.

It started out well enough but seemed to have several missing pieces as the film went on. My biggest problem is that I could not get a sense of what Nora saw in James, how much of a genius James was, and the complete picture of themselves as a couple in their times.

The pacing was also a little off - I wouldn't call it slow but it seemed slow because it focused so much on this one aspect of this couple but never really expanded beyond that.

I disagree with several of the critics who originally trashed this film. I don't think it was a bad film - it had lots of interesting things in it. While I enjoyed both of the characters, it was hard for me to feel much empathy for them. Joyce was portrayed as kind of a jealous, small minded, petty, and selfish bastard while Nora could be really awful herself and you never could figure out what they saw in each other beyond sex.

I'm glad I saw it but I think the story could have been a lot better if it was more tightly told, better paced and the viewer had a chance to see what the story was really trying to convey.

"Nora" tells of the life of renown Irish author James Joyce (1882-1941) who penned such notable literature as "Finnegan's Wake" and "Ulysses". Not the usual biopic, this period film peers into the peculiar if not aberrant symbiosis of Joyce's (McGergor) relationship with common-law wife Nora (Lynch). With a herky-jerky linear flow and scenes not unlike a string of sausage links, "Nora" skips over much of Joyce's life which, by cinematic standards, wasn't all that interesting anyway making for a lukewarm albeit well crafted film. Recommended for those with an interest in Joyce and McGregor or Lynch fans.

Nora is a portrait of a strong women with a natural sexual self-confidence dealing with a man whose sexuality is convoluted and self-torturing. This is a fascinating theme, and in the hands of a director brave enough to tackle it head on it might have made a fascinating film.

Unfortunately Nora pulls all the important punches.

It ends, for one thing, with the completion of Dubliners, long before the completion of Joyce's masterpiece, Ulysses. It is in Ulysses more than any other of his works that Joyce portrays Nora's frank and unashamed sexuality through the soliloquy of Molly Bloom that provides its unforgettably affirmative coda:

"I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish Wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes."

Much of the film is repetitious; there would have been ample space to deal with the composition of Ulysses. Leaving it out points up the film's essential timidity in the face of the historical and literary record.

The film's most daring scene -- and biggest cop-out -- involves the exchange of sexually explicit letters when the pair are in different counties, an exchange deliberately initiated by Joyce for the purpose of sexual relief. Joyce's side of the correspondence can be found in the Collected Letters. Joyce yearned to be accepted sexually for himself, with all his kinks and erotic hang-ups. Nora permitted him to confront those sides of his sexuality both in his life and in his work, and that more than any thing else is the reason they stayed together. The film too needed to confront those issues. Instead his words, spoken in voice-over against an image of Nora discreetly masturbating, consist of a few tame references to 'licking'. All the four-letter words, the masochism and the anal fantasies have been left out. A viewer unfamiliar with Joyce's work would be left with the impression that his sexual preferences were by modern standards pretty ordinary.

Other issues not dealt with are the psychological problems of Lucia Joyce, their daughter, who began to show signs of mental illness in 1930, and was treated for a time by Carl Jung. The image of Lucia in the film makes an oblique reference to Lucia's problems, showing her standing forlornly in the doorway or looking out on the world through iron railings, but a reader unacquainted with her story is unlikely to understand the significance of these images. Here as everywhere else the film turns its eye away from the darkest corner. It closes with Joyce and Nora, soon after the completion of Dubliners, walking arm in arm towards the end of a jetty as the sun sets. This anodyne image is presented to us as the final truth about Joyce and Nora. A film which consistently avoids its subject; an opportunity missed.

Irish writer James Joyce (Ewan McGregor) meets Nora, a servant (Nora Lynch), and they hit it off. She's stronger and more real, and can read him so easily. He has so many superstitions and fears. But they love each other, and run off together to mainland europe. Where they scratch for food and work. Nora pops out a couple kids, and they get Joyce's brother Stani to come help. It's good... very serious. Moves right along. Apparently, Joyce liked the drink. Wasn't too religious. But took his writing very seriously. Directed by irish director Pat Murphy. From the book by Brenda Maddox. Film showing on the roku channel. Interesting.

It's clear that the cast and crew of Nora put effort into the work that went on here. Unfortunately, their good intentions did not translate into a good, or even watchable, film.

To be frank, I found this movie boring. It reaches for quirkiness, but rarely rises above the mundane. Here's are some of the principle flaws:

• The setting. This movie is as glaringly, ferociously, self-consciously Irish as Baywatch is ostentatiously "Californian," and unfortunately it's just as romanticized (even if some of that romanticism is dark). It's simply overwhelming. (I hope I will not be accused of being one of "those" Americans who can't stomach non-Hollywood cinema for holding this opinion. It is only because I *do* watch a lot of foreign films that I saw this one to begin with.)

• The characters. I will be the first to admit that I know very little about the real James Joyce. However, being that he's considered one of the greatest authors in history, I had hoped he had some uncommon vision, some wisdom, or some complex guiding motivation. In this movie, he has none of these things.

• The editing. This film drags. My friends and I (two of whom, for reference, are British) ended up watching the last 15 minutes in fast-forward and it was *still* too long. 30 minutes could easily have been cut and the movie would have been better for it.

• The style. Or, lack thereof. We hear that Joyce is a creative genius. If so, he didn't influence the production team much. As another user put it, despite a few quirks the style is painfully mundane.

Overall: Tries, but finishes only average, bordering on unwatchable due to sheer length. 5/10

Relax, folks, you don't have to read Ulysses to watch this movie, let alone Finnegans Wake (no apostrophe in latter title as per Joyce). Better yet, it's not a movie version of either. The relationship between Joyce and Nora is the subject, and the ups and downs (no sexual pun here, though it would fit) of it are lovingly unfolded. Nora somehow reminded me of Molly Bloom in Ulysses, though I have no idea if Nora was the inspiration for Molly. Good photography, fine acting. why only a seven from yours truly? Too slow for my taste, Perhaps an unfortunate product of the SMS age. No wonder I never finished Ulysses nor could get into Finnegans Wake.

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.)

Writer's lives are always a difficult subject for the screen, and even with the wealth of biographical and autobiographical material about James Joyce, he remains no exception. This movie, concentrating on the early part of his relationship with the humorously-monikered Nora barnacle makes a reasonable enough attempt to bring cinematic life to this complex and enigmatic figure.

Ewan McGregor, in the role of Joyce is sometimes a bit too young and sexy to convey his subjects brooding, promethean intensity, but he's certainly more convincing than Bosco Hogan in Joseph Strick's Portrait of an artist. The real star of the film is Susan Lynch, whose earthy sexuality convinces us that she could develop into the Molly Bloom of Ulysses. There's also good support from the actor playing Joyce's more level-headed brother and soi-disant "keeper", Stanislaus.

The movie is often affected by the exaggerated Irishness that seems to blight every movie set in the island, but it doesn't get in the way of the film's verisimilitude too much, with one exception. When Joyce's brother takes his book to an Irish publisher, he is told that "there's something dirty going on" in "The Dead" and this is presented as a uniquely Irish reaction, though in reality Joyce had the same reaction everywhere.

The film is also punctuated by subtle allusions to Joyces work that literati will enjoy picking up, but won't alienate those poor hordes of non-Joyceans too much. At the risk of sounding like a swotty pedant, there's a lot of profane language in the movie, which Joyce maintained he never used in speech, though it serves, if anything to increase the characters' believability.

This could have been a good film. The costumes were gorgeous. The cinematography was grand. Why was so much time devoted to overt sexuality? Would have been better to delve into James Joyce's personality and work. His relationship with Nora beyond their sexual exploits.

Anticipated much more. Call me old fashioned bur it takes more than sex to make a good film.

I'm rather surprised to see so many glowing reviews for this mess. Maybe these people are James Joyce fans?? I have only a cursory knowledge of the author and frankly have never really examined his work in any detail. Is that a necessary pre-requisite for appreciating this film? It shouldn't be.

However, as a movie and theater goer, I can tell you that this film is an interminable disaster. The screenplay is too vague on so many important points about the lives of the two main characters, that it leaves the casual audience confused, bewildered and bored. The emotions of Mr. Joyce and wife seem to switch back and forth with lightning schizophrenic speed from one cliche to the next. Neither of the two talented leads can surmount the dull direction, plodding scenario, and absence of a genuinely interesting story. Based on this movie, I would never want to read a word Joyce wrote. He seems so dull and pedestrian. Some commentators have stressed the film is not about Mr. Joyce, but about Nora. But there wouldn't be anything special about her or her life if she hadn't been Joyce's "amour". All we understand about Joyce from this movie is that he writes, swears, has a variable amount of sexual deviancy, drinks and of course, is Irish! With all that, he is still a complete stranger to us by the film's end; a character we cared about in the first fifteen minutes of the movie and one we couldn't give a hoot about by the conclusion.

With all frankness, this movie is more about subtle audience torture than an interesting relationship. In fact, after 45 minutes of viewing the DVD, I was just wishing that someone would come along, shoot Mr. Joyce and his wife, and put them and us out their and our collective misery.

Could have been good but unfortunately the sound mix together with mumbling actors means we will never know. No subtitles so there were scenes where we have no idea of the dialogue with load background music and actors who cannot speak lines clearly or perhaps a director who told then to keep it quiet, whatever, the result is a confused boring mess.

I've read some of the comments pro and con already made on this movie and am glad some viewers liked it. I thought it very fine indeed, but agree that some prior knowledge of James Joyce, his life and work, is helpful. Joyce's writing is not a bore, as some of the comments suggest. The story "The Dead," from Joyce's collection "Dubliners," is one of the great short stories in English literature. It is referrd to several times in this film. (Incidentally, "The Dead" has been made into a film also.) The time of the film "Nora", when Joyce was trying to find a publisher for "Dubliners", was well before the writing of his great work, "Ulysses". It was a time when Joyce and Nora Barnacle had a stormy relationship, but nevertheless were deeply in love and had a lusty relationship with each other. This is well depicted in the movie, beginning with their first date, when Nora surprises and delights Joyce with her bold advances. Ewan McGregor and Susan Lynch play these scenes with high professional skill, helping us to really understand the delight these two people had in a physical relationship. Their love is an up and down affair but endures. McGregor is a fine actor who always give 100% in whatever his role may be and in "Nora" he does not disappoint. I was struck by the way he squinted occasionally, just as Joyce must have done with his terrible eyesight, which even in these early years had begun to deteriorate badly. Susan Lynch is new to me and very convincing as the servant girl from the Irish countryside who kept up to the challenges of life with a great intellectual. One objection: I viewed this film on DVD and was unhappy that there are no captions for the hard of hearing--or for those who have trouble with Irish brogues!! There were a couple of the Trieste scenes where Italian conversation did have English language captions. A great relief! But is it really too great an expense for DVD producers to routinely include the caption option?

At a superficial level the film is richly evocative of the physical and cultural settings of Dublin, Ireland and Trieste, Italy; and of the strong contrasts between the two places. Dublin's streets are gritty, dark and damp, its people dress in shades of black and grey. Trieste is bright and airy, and people find it natural that rooms should connect via exterior balconies. But unfortunately when James Joyce tried to escape Dublin he carried his Irish neuroses with him in his cases.

Nora Barnacle is hearty, strong, sensuous and highly adaptable. As a biography of her, this film concentrates on the generous support and protection that she gives, and promises to give, to a fearful, complicated man given to outrageous sexual jealousy--James Joyce.

Nora and James might seem poorly matched and perhaps it is the combination of her own jealousy for his letters--and their intense physical relationship--that binds them.

None of us could expect to predict a stable outcome, could we? Yet they lived together for their entire adult lives.

How one views this film will depend in part on how much of a Joyce devotee the viewer is. As is the case with any film based on the life of a larger-than-life figure, the film will be largely viewed by those who have an avid interest in James Joyce. These viewers will judge the film with a much more discerning eye. The fact that Joyce's work does not have mass appeal and is devoured by a small but fervent group of literary intellectuals makes the scrutiny that much more intense. For this audience, the film will have numerous unbearable flaws and inaccuracies.

However, for the audience of non aficionados, this film has a great deal to recommend itself, providing that the viewer loves good drama and has the patience to endure its methodical pacing. The story is a powerful love story with shearing forces that bring emotional torrent to the relationship. In it we find the high minded writer, James Joyce, obsessed with Nora, the coarse and illiterate chamber maid whose practical wisdom and unfettered sexuality provide the ideal compliment and the perfect wedge. These two are helpless moths being consumed by a bonfire of ardor built on differences that are as irreconcilable as they are essential to each of their souls. Given this premise, we have the underpinnings of great theater.

Despite the disappointment of many Joyce fans regarding this treatment, the film is really not about James Joyce, it is about the relationship. Thankfully, director Pat Murphy didn't lose sight of that fact and succumb to the temptation to mollify Joyce fans by making this a Joyce-centric film. Murphy patiently peels away the layers of each character and casts each revelation on the relationship like kerosene on a house fire. The deeper we get into the characters, the more complex and hopeless the relationship becomes, and paradoxically, the more inextricably entwined its participants.

Murphy's direction is excellent on all fronts. The cinematography is incredible with awe inspiring locations and a wonderfully rich sepia quality that enhances the period renderings. The look and feel the period is well done. The early 20th century costumes, furniture, sets and props are precise and breathe life and realism into each scene.

The acting is superb. Ewan McGregor practically rips himself to shreds playing the mercurial Joyce, jovial and charming one minute, paranoid, brooding and insanely jealous the next. However, poor Ewan once again has a terrific performance upstaged by his co-star Susan Lynch (See Nicole Kidman and "Moulin Rouge!").

Despite lacking the classic features of a leading lady, Lynch's physiognomy is a perfect match for the earthy Nora. Lynch can flat out act. This lady has a five octave emotional range with the force of Caribbean hurricane. If there weren't a single other reason to see this film, her performance would be enough.

I am glad that I happened on to this film buried in the stacks at the video store. I rated it a 9/10. It isn't for everyone, but for those who can appreciate a fatalistic love story with steamy sexual content, constant emotional tension, great acting and insightful directing; this will be a disturbing, but worthwhile experience.

This is a beautiful film. Beautiful in the way it was directed, played and photographed.

Some of the photography, by cinematographer Jean-Francois Robin, could remind the viewer of the most famous of impressionist paintings of the time with couples strolling in the late afternoon fading sun in that magic hour of light when day is slowly but surely turning into night.

The story is essentially about Nora and we are introduced early on to the inspiration of the Michael Furey character from The Dead. This is shown in flashback, just as it is in the original story, as the physically bruised Nora Barnacle leaves Galway for Dublin after a beating from her father.

We are not sure just how far Nora's sexual experiences with the young man went but when she eventually meets James Joyce on that famous original Bloomsday of June 16th 1904, when the Ascot Gold Cup was being won by Throwaway, when Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus were wandering elsewhere around Dublin she does something so memorable and orgasmic to the genius Jim that it plants the seeds of jealousy in his mind that will haunt and taunt their relationship even to the point of James questioning whether their eldest child, Giorgio, is in fact his. If she did that to me she would do it to anybody is his reasoning.

There are some fine multi layered performances by the two leading characters, Ewan McGregor and Susan Lynch, who are ably supported by Peter McDonald as Jim's long suffering but supportive brother Stanny (Stanislaus). With one turn of the head and a slight look in the eye McGregor shows the character's insecurity with the relationship and the return look from Lynch lets him know, and the audience, that he is being unreasonable. Nora believes that James invents the situations to give him fuel for his stories but there is a growing torment of the young artist there with his displays of paranoia about Dublin, his fear of 'things with horns' and his child like panic when he is caught in a thunder storm. These three things and maybe his writing with its stream of consciousness tell us that this, indeed, is not a reasonable man.

There was hardly any mention, however, of the eye problems that James Joyce suffered from throughout his life. His fear of blindness, that he eventually almost reached, might have shown his urgency to get things down on paper. But this is such a small complaint in a wonderful movie so lovingly written and directed by Pat Murphy without one word of James Joyce being used in the script. There are a few little hints, which copyright cannot affect, when we see the few lines: 'Europe, The World, The Universe' which comes from 'A Portrait Of The Artist as a Young Man' and we see Nora save a manuscript from the fire. A manuscript that would be the first draft of 'Portrait' and which eventually saw the light of day as 'Stephen Hero.'

I was also most fortunate to attend the screening on Aug. 23 in Sydney. Ewan's words at the end of the film really illuminated the motives and the intense belief shown by the director Pat Murphy and the lead actors for this lovingly crafted film.

At first, the tale seems simple enough. Two people are in love. Love, however, has a habit of not coming into people's lives in a logical fashion. Hence, the literary genius whose muse is a country girl turned chambermaid. This situation prompts questions/doubts at many levels - for the audience, the friends and family of Joyce and Nora, and the lovers themselves.

This is why I feel it is necessary to view the film more than once. The understanding of this love requires thought. It is an hypnotic story, at times confronting as the different modes of realisation, elation, torment and rejection of love are lived through by the duo as they flow in and out of synch. with one another.

It should be pointed out that the film's title, 'Nora' should be accepted as a signpost that this film does NOT focus on Joyce. It is the significance to Nora of this union and the effect of her existence upon Joyce which is the true focus.

I highly recommend this film as a most satisfying and very beautifully told study of an all encompassing real life love affair.

I've read the biography on which this movie is based, and found that the screen adaptation hasn't embellished the true story (unlike most biopics) very much. "Nora" covers the Joyces courtship in Dublin, immigration, and their years in Trieste until 1914 when "Dubliners" was finally published. McGregor may not be perfectly cast - he's heavier, and not much of a tenor - Joyce, on the other hand, was so renowned for his singing that he briefly contemplated making a career out of it. Ewan's very earnest in his attempt, though, he gets an A for effort. Susan Lynch makes a great Nora, no complaints there.

Some of the chronology is played around with - the Prezioso episode happened after James and Nora's last mutual visit to Galway, not before. Two of Joyce's sisters are conflated into one, and the family's stint in Rome is omitted. Some episodes are invented for the sake of exposition, such as the run-in with the cattle in Dublin. Those are minor quibbles. The film got many details right - not the least of which was how elegantly the couple always tried to dress despite their relative lack of funds. Trieste hasn't changed much since early 20th century, so we also get to see some nice location shots - and a few in Dublin.

I was a bit disappointed that the film ended at an early cutoff point, after James and Nora's first decade together. Ideally, it should have been a miniseries a la "John Adams", and covered their fame in Paris, Nora and the kids caught in a Civil War crossfire during their last trip to Ireland, Joyce's eye troubles, Lucia's illness, etc. As is, it shows only the beginning of an almost 40-year relationship.

Living in the midwestern US, it's not as if I expected to ever get a chance to see "Nora" in the theaters. To be honest I wasn't that interested in seeing the film, which I'd heard little about, but during a recent visit with film fanatic relatives in DC a viewing of "Nora" at the Ireland Festival was on the schedule.

Gag me, I thought, an "art film," but I have to admit I was surprised. I've read a lot of Joyce's work (which I've always liked) so I was disappointed at first that the film didn't focus more on the creative process, but the story of Joyce and Nora Barnacle was pretty intriguing in and of itself.

I went surfing for info about this nice little film when I got back home; Susan Lynch is every bit as wonderful as the meager number of net reviews I could find say she is. She gives a striking and memorable performance as the woman who inspired Molly Bloom. Nora's tenacity in the face of Joyce's neuroses and abusive behavior was both awe inspiring and frustrating to behold; Lynch's brilliant performance alone made the film worth seeing. Not to say that McGregor wasn't good in the role of Joyce, but if I were forced to choose one performance over the other in this film to honor it would be hers. Give McGregor credit for having enough savvy to play his role understated enough to allow his co-star to shine. His ability to imbue the neurotic and manipulative Joyce with some humanity without going over the top and stealing Lynch's thunder is noteworthy. Not many actors could have pulled this off. He's one of the few that could.

"Nora" has some problems. It meanders in places and tends to overanalyze the "problems in their relationship" but it is a gorgeous looking film featuring a volatile partnership that is vibrant and alive if nothing else--overwrought without being boring, disarmingly sexy without being too crass (I did blush in a few places!) Not a perfect screenplay, but a good one. The performances make the film. I was pleasantly surprised.

I have to say I was greatly surprised by the extremely low rating average on this film's IMDB listing page--I looked at the demographic breakdown and over half the votes are 5 and above, so how can it possibly be 2.8 average? I had the opportunity to view Nora overseas a couple of weeks ago and I must say I found it compelling, even though its focus confused me a little.

The storyline kind of went into full gear before we got to know the characters, but the performances of Ewan McGregor and Susan Lynch were both top notch. The relationship of James and Nora riveted me to my seat. They fought like dogs, but they were vibrant and passionate souls whose relationship endured all sorts of demons. Nora's soul was bared for the viewer and Susan Lynch made her one of the strongest female characters I can remember by giving Nora vulnerability as well as uncommon emotional strength. McGregor did a great job of helping me sympathize with Joyce, even when he was neurotic and treated his long time love terribly. I wish the beginning of their relationship had been presented more concretely, but McGregor and Lynch hooked me anyway. As it presented the events of their lives, Nora was top notch. Not for anyone who is an afficionado of actions films, that's for sure.

James Joyce (Ewan McGregor) finds his spiritual and sexual equal and partner in life in Nora Barnacle (Susan Lynch) while a young man in Dublin. Although he is a university student and she a maid at the local hotel, the two become lovers against the advice of Joyce's friends who lust after Nora themselves. Joyce convinces Nora to join him in Italy where he accepted a teaching position. The two begin their lives together living beyond their means, dressing fashionably, and fighting while raising their children. Nora is anything but a quiet professor's wife, she is the life force that motivates him. Joyce, one of the major literary geniuses of the 20th century, is revealed through the film that explores the volatile relationship between the couple through Nora's story.

Susan Lynch won the Best Actress award at the Dublin Film Festival for her performance as the earthy muse whose presence was as much a torture to Joyce as inspiration. Ewan McGregor, in his first adult leading man role, proves he has matured as an actor of solid talent and sensitivity in his role as the jealous, insecure, yet brilliant writer.

Shot on location in Ireland and Italy, Nora is a small independent film produced by McGregor's company, Natural Nylon, and likely to be overlooked by most audiences. However, if solid acting, adult story lines. and turn-of-the-century costume biopics are your cup of tea, this video is worth the price of purchase.