This is My Father

Rating:
Summary: A Genuine Masterpiece!
Review: One of the most powerful love stories to come along in decades, "This Is My Father" takes the spectator on a journey to 1939 rural Ireland. Opening in modern day Chicago where James Caan portrays an unhappy highschool teacher, he discovers a 60 year old photograph of an unknown man standing next to his mother. Never knowing who his father was, Caan goes back to his mother's homeland in hopes of unraveling the mystery behind the photo. In meeting a fortune teller who had known his mother during her youth, the story takes shape as Caan (and the spectator) is taken back in time through the old woman's memories. Aidan Quinn who portrays Kieran O'Day, the unknown figure in the haunting photograph, gives a performance that will melt your heart! It is rare these days to find a film, especially a love story, without nudity and excessive profanity. This is one of them. The impact of the story and the extraordinary talent of the cast is so powerful that the viewer will want to see it again and again. Based on a true event and 10 years in the writing to perfect it by Paul Quinn (brother of Aidan), this is a masterpiece that will remain in the heart for years to come.

Rating:
Summary: One of the best movies of 1999--and it was ignored!
Review: Some critics complained that the framing device with James Caan's character and his nephew wasn't interesting. Some critics complained it had been done before. Some critics complained it was too schmaltzy. I disagree with them all. Everything worked for me in "This Is My Father." This is a film not afraid to have simple characters, subtle storytelling and heart-wrenching scenes of confusion, loneliness and sorrow. Not a performance seemed out of place and even those that were a bit over the top (Stephen Rea, Colm Meaney) were equal parts metaphor and real-character. It moved me in the theaters and I believe that those fans of "The Shawshank Redemption" and "The English Patient" would revel in the complexities of the human spirit represented so adeptly by the Quinn family. It is really a shame that I had to hurry to the Uptown in Minneapolis to catch this movie before it disappeared.

Rating:
Summary: Anti-Catholic film disguised as tragic romance
Review: The jacket cover says its a story about a burned-out school teacher looking for his father. Rather, it's a story of young tragic love, with The Catholic Church painted as the villain.

This film pulls out all the stops and uses every anti-Catholic stereotype we've seen before - overly repressive clergy at service to a Church obsessed with money and sex. A twisted priest who provides poor council in the confessional. The main character ultimately killing himself, we are led to believe because of the guidance offered by the priest.

Masquerading as a story based on real-life experiences it is anti-Catholicism of the most insidious kind because it is a moving story. Those unfamiliar with the Church will come away blaming it for all of the problems in the film.

The film pays attention only to young passionate love, and gives no time to old love, sacrificial love, or agape love.

This is truly a disappointing film.

Rating:
Summary: Truly Profound!
Review: This film, written and directed by Paul Quinn with brother Declan as Director of Photgraphy and starring brother Aidan, is a labor of love of which Paul says "I think this film will speak to those parts of all of us that remain ungrieved and uncared for -- to that thrown away part of us." I was deeply moved by the film which features absolutely superb acting, directing and cinematography.I could hardly wait to see it in the theatres, missed it, but fortunately was able to procure an advance VHS copy. I SO love this film that I will most certainly buy it for myself and others as soon as it is released-

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful
Review: This is a beautiful movie full of love and tragedy. The dialogue is not heavy or long, but the feelings are shown by great acting. This is a great movie for a rainy day, a cup of tea, a blanket, and tissues!

Rating:
Summary: Brillant and very moving
Review: This is a wonderful film. I rarely cry at movies, but this one had me weeping copiously at the end. The acting was first-rate; Aidan Quinn turns in one of his best performances ever as the poor, quiet Kieran. James Caan was subtle and sympathetic as a lonely schoolteacher searching for the story of his father. This film was romantic without being schmaltzy, and ultimately tragic and heartbreaking--no typical Hollywood happy ending here. The movie's portrayal of provincial Irish society in the late 30s was starkly accurate, as was its indictment of the Catholic Church. All in all, a great film that has been sadly underappreciated.

Rating:
Summary: Compelling, Moving, Beautiful, and Unforgettable!!!
Review: This is an unforgettable film which deserves a huge audience. It moves back and forth through past and present, weaving both together through a family and its history, and a lonely, burned out teacher's exploration of his roots. Each view and each perspective in this family -- past and present -- is sensitively explored. The most compelling, however, is the grandmother's love story with Kieran (Aidan Quinn) in County Galway in Ireland. This film explores Irish life and the Irish perspective, and the blessings and curses of each. The cast is superb, and Aidan Quinn gives a wonderfully moving performance as Kieran, the Father.

There are other Fathers in this film. Exploring these and musing about their meanings and their meddlings, past and present, is something best done by each individual viewer. Beautifully photographed, superbly acted, and wonderfully conceived, this is a must-see film for everyone, but especially for anyone with an interest in Ireland. This wonderful country and its history, its people, its music, its curses, its blessings, and its magic are all captured in loving detail onscreen. Highly, Highly recommended!!!

Rating:
Summary: Compelling, Moving, Beautiful, and Unforgettable!!!
Review: This is an unforgettable film which deserves a huge audience. It moves back and forth through past and present, weaving both together through a family and its history, and a lonely, burned out teacher's exploration of his roots. Each view and each perspective in this family -- past and present -- is sensitively explored. The most compelling, however, is the grandmother's love story with Kieran (Aidan Quinn) in County Galway in Ireland. This film explores Irish life and the Irish perspective, and the blessings and curses of each. The cast is superb, and Aidan Quinn gives a wonderfully moving performance as Kieran, the Father.

There are other Fathers in this film. Exploring these and musing about their meanings and their meddlings, past and present, is something best done by each individual viewer. Beautifully photographed, superbly acted, and wonderfully conceived, this is a must-see film for everyone, but especially for anyone with an interest in Ireland. This wonderful country and its history, its people, its music, its curses, its blessings, and its magic are all captured in loving detail onscreen. Highly, Highly recommended!!!

Rating:
Summary: Lest one forget, the old were young once
Review: THIS IS MY FATHER, besides being an above average love story, also has at least one message to convey, i.e. that the aged and infirm were at one time youthful. (I remember my deceased maternal grandmother, left widowed with an unborn child by the Great War on its last day, as an old woman growing increasingly infirm and bitter. But she was young and pretty once. I've seen the pictures.)

James Caan plays Kieran Johnson, a Chicago schoolteacher of advancing middle age, whose dying mother, Fiona, is cared for by his half-sister. One day, Johnson comes across an old photo. An accompanying declaration of devotion suggests that his mother once loved a man named Kieran O'Day back in Ireland. Was the name a coincidence? Was O'Day the biological father Johnson never knew? Rendered catatonic by a recent stroke, Fiona can't say. So the younger Kieran returns to the Old Country to find his roots.

THIS IS MY FATHER is essentially an extended flashback driven by the memories told Johnson by an old Gypsy woman who's now the proprietress of the B&B in which he stays, and who knew Fiona back in 1939 when both were teenagers. In that timeframe, Aidan Quinn has the role of Kieran O'Day and Moya Farrelly that of the young Fiona. O'Day, orphaned as a boy, has spent his life with an otherwise childless couple occupying a farm owned by Fiona's widowed mother, Mary (Gina Moxley). The conflict in the plot is between lovers O'Day and Fiona on one hand, and Mary, the local constabulary and the parish priest on the other. Our couple is surrounded. Mary's class snobbishness prevents her from seeing O'Day as a suitable match for her daughter. (To be fair, our hero is somewhat of a lump.) The village gendarme gets involved because Fiona is, at seventeen, underage. The Church, ever vigilant for sin or its potential, gets its proverbial knickers in a twist because it can't stand to see two singles getting closer than what's allowed at a church monitored and sponsored dance. At one point, the local padre brings in a colleague to preach fire and brimstone at the parish males on the danger of carnal sins. Afterwards, the hired gun hears the men's confessions. In one of the film's best scenes, and perhaps one of the most disquieting considering the current state of affairs in the U.S. clergy, O'Day confesses the 'impure thoughts' he's been having towards Fiona. The priest persists in probing for details about these mental visions to the point that perhaps one would be justified in thinking he wants to titillate his own repressed sexuality. Unsophisticated and trusting, O'Day is oblivious to his confessor's creepy interest.

Shot on location in a lushly green and pleasant land, I long for the place as only one living in L.A. on the edge of the desert can. The stars of the piece are Quinn and Farrelly, though Moxley's persona as the bitter Mary is intriguing as she uncomprehendingly copes with a curse put upon her by another local. James Caan, though the biggest name in the cast, plays a role that's almost as irrelevant as the adult brother and sister characters in the excellent screen version of BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY who discover from Mom's diary that she once had an affair with a traveling photographer. Considering the set-up to the flashback, the conclusion of THIS IS MY FATHER is satisfying albeit unsurprising. It's a well-done period piece - a labor of love created by the three Quinn brothers.

Rating:
Summary: Incredible
Review: This is the first movie in a very long time that has really touched me. I just caught it on cinemax about a minute after it started. As soon as this movie was over I pratically ran over to the computer to find out what the name of it was. Easily the best movie I've seen this year.