City Cinema: Stella Days

Comedy/Drama. PG, language, brief violence, adult situations.
Dir: Thaddeus O’Sullivan, Ireland, 2011, 100 min.
Martin Sheen, Stephen Rea, Trystan Gravelle.

Sponsored by The Benevolent Irish Society.

“Playing a small-town Catholic priest in culturally isolated 1950s Ireland, Martin Sheen does his best work since The West Wing… This splendidly acted drama explores its themes with sensitivity, gentle humor and poignancy… Inspired by Michael Doorley’s memoir… Progressive cleric Daniel Barry (Sheen) sees his temporary assignment to the tiny Tipperary backwater of Borrisokane as a penance… A lover of movies and a believer in their power to communicate, Father Barry suggests opening a cinema… He promises that the movie house will be a civilizing influence, showing only films deemed morally suitable. While the Bishop proves malleable, xenophobic politician Brendan McSweeny does not, branding all movies as corrupting filth. The old-fashioned qualities of Stella Days are among its strengths, echoed in the handsome period production values… While the film has moments of Cinema Paradiso-style sentiment, these are achieved with delicacy. Chief asset is the cast, with fine work from the lovely Plunkett and from Rea in an amusingly dour role. But it’s Sheen who carries the film. He brings sorrowful dimensions to a conflicted character that both bristles against and uncomfortably reflects a culture steeped in uneasy contradictions.” —David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter

“Nothing shy of exceptional, Stella Days explores the culture of Ireland in the fifties with parallels to the present. This is a piece of cinema that is, in itself, a love letter to the form and well worth another look back if anyone missed it the first time around.” 

—Film Ireland