Rating: 
Summary: A very mixed review.
Review: 'Dancing at Lughasa' is an interesting (if somewhat depressing) movie, but worth watching for the sterling performances; Streep is sensational as the priggish elder sister trying to hold her family together, but the screen is really stolen by the excellent Cathy Burke, one of Britain's finest character actresses. The real 'loose link' in this movie for me was the child the plot centres around - this kid is no Mark Lester, and his hopeless performance adds a 'surreal' element to his scenes; one minute, we are so swept up in the believable performances that it is completely our'reality', yet as soon as the kid walks into a scene, it's like; "Oh yeah. I'm watching another movie about an Irish family. Bring out the fiddles." Furthermore, there is no real 'action' in this movie; events build up and then turn into non-events, the ending so depressing (and predictable) that you feel a little resentful for investing so much EMOTIONALLY in this movie. Still, it's worth seeing for the performances, if nothing else.
Rating: 
Summary: If you ever loved a sibling or a child ... if you ever loved
Review: .... the experiences shared on screen of this particular Irish family will reach into your heart and leave its mark somewhere very close to what you have loved and possibly lost. Oh, yes, the Irish countryside is gorgeous ... no doubt ... it's every bit an eyeful in its beauty as the land of NED DEVINE ... but a movie succeeds when it reaches in to bring forth a feeling from the mind and heart. Memorable movies are about human experiences ... not the terrain. If you ever loved and rejoiced, grieved and felt lost in how complex family ties can be ... you'll know the experiences of the Mundy sisters. One or all of them will hold up a mirror and you will see, much to your surprise, yourself ... and you won't even have to be Irish.
Rating:
Summary: One Irish summer
Review: A man fondly recalls the summer of 1936, when he was eight years old in this Irish slice-of-life drama. Young Michael lives with his unmarried mother and her four spinster sisters, including Kate (Meryl Streep). The women make a meager living by knitting gloves, until a knitting factory opens nearby. Into their quiet and ordered lives comes their older brother, a priest who spent his life in Africa and has suffered a kind of breakdown, and Michael's long-unseen father, an adventurer who's on his way to fight against Franco. This is a very quiet and slow-paced film. It succeeds in capturing the lifestyle, character, and beauty of the Irish countryside, when all that mattered was your family and church. There is very little action - a motor cycle ride, listening to the radio, and on one special night, dancing in the yard - but that makes the film even more poignant. Based on an autobiographical play, Dancing at Lughnasa is a raw, no-frills look back in time, with an art-house-film feel. Fans of Meryl Streep will enjoy her fine performance as the strict and melancholy eldest sister. Michael Gambon gives a sympathetic performance as the confused priest who has come home to die.
Rating:
Summary: One Irish summer
Review: A man fondly recalls the summer of 1936, when he was eight years old in this Irish slice-of-life drama. Young Michael lives with his unmarried mother and her four spinster sisters, including Kate (Meryl Streep). The women make a meager living by knitting gloves, until a knitting factory opens nearby. Into their quiet and ordered lives comes their older brother, a priest who spent his life in Africa and has suffered a kind of breakdown, and Michael's long-unseen father, an adventurer who's on his way to fight against Franco. This is a very quiet and slow-paced film. It succeeds in capturing the lifestyle, character, and beauty of the Irish countryside, when all that mattered was your family and church. There is very little action - a motor cycle ride, listening to the radio, and on one special night, dancing in the yard - but that makes the film even more poignant. Based on an autobiographical play, Dancing at Lughnasa is a raw, no-frills look back in time, with an art-house-film feel. Fans of Meryl Streep will enjoy her fine performance as the strict and melancholy eldest sister. Michael Gambon gives a sympathetic performance as the confused priest who has come home to die.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent screen adaptation of an excellent play.
Review: Brian Friel carries the torch for the great Irish playwrights. Lughnasa follows a family trying to adapt to modern Ireland, intimating Ireland's adaptation to a much larger world. It seems that, in some ways, pagan Ireland was better adapted to the world at large than is Christian Ireland.
Rating:
Summary: A quiet film, and hauntingly lovely
Review: Dancing at Lughnasa, a movie adapted from an autobiography, delves into the lives of five women, unmarried sisters living in rural Ireland in the 30s. The youngest sister has given birth to an illegitimate son, and at the beginning of the movie Michael, the little boy, is 8 year old. There's a pagan ritual that the village observes every August, a night when they dance around a fire in honor of the god Lugh, the ancient god of light. But wait? Aren't these villagers good Catholics? It's Ireland, after all. The answer is yes...at least, sort of.
Tensions increase with the arrival of 2 men. One is the only brother in this family, an elderly priest returning from missionary work in Africa, where he apparently slowly lost his mind. The other is Gerry (Rhys Ifans), Michael's long-absent father who's still not about to commit to much of anything. Meryl Streep plays the eldest sister, often a shrew, but always riveting.
It's a good one, augmented with gorgeous music and stunning cinematography of the incomparable Irish countryside.
Rating:
Summary: "Dancing as if language no longer existed."
Review: Directed by Pat O'Connor and exquisitely filmed (by Kenneth MacMillan) in the countryside of Donegal, this ensemble drama is adapted from the stage play by Brian Friel. Screenwriter Frank McGuinness sticks close to the dialogue of the play but opens up the rural cottage setting to include brief scenes of the town of Ballybeg, the stunning and untamed countryside, and the pagan harvest celebration, the Feast of Lughnasa. Set in 1936, the film focuses on the difficult lives of five unmarried sisters and an eight-year-old love child, when Ireland was on the verge of World War II and industrialization. The film stresses character and theme, rather than plot, highlighting the relationships among the sisters as they cope with the arrival of their brother, a priest returning from Uganda after twenty-five years, and the summer-long visit of Gerry Evans, father of Christina's child, Michael.
Kate (Meryl Streep), the sister who is "in charge," is the only real wage earner in the family. Rigid, severe, and lacking in humor, she believes pagan celebrations, such as the Feast of Lughnasa, which still provide fun and enjoyment in the countryside, are "uncivilized." Her priest brother (sensitively played by Michael Gambon), however, is now virtually a pagan himself. Though he is clearly unbalanced, he has learned the need of the poor for happiness, dancing, and community celebration, even if it is not church-sanctioned.
The other Mundy sisters help illustrate the chasm between Kate's attitudes and those of Fr. Jack. Maggie (Kathy Burke), the fun-loving, free-spirited, and most humorous of the sisters, constantly bursts into singing and dancing. Christina has fun during the summer with lover Gerry Evans but feels no need to marry him. Aggie (Brid Brennan) and Rose (Sophie Thompson), who earn small wages knitting gloves, work as the family's sad, "unpaid servants," and constantly chafe against Kate's strictures and the lack of fun. When Kate loses her job, the family is devastated, but it is at that moment that they discover the joy of dancing and recognize the need to celebrate life itself.
The dramatic opening with its photographs of African celebrations sets the tone for the film, and the music, sometimes featuring traditional Celtic instruments (accordian, fiddle, and bodhran), suggests common pagan roots. The cinematography is stunning, and the cast is as good as it gets. As is sometimes characteristic of plays converted to film, the dialogue is a bit exaggerated, as it has to be on stage, where close-ups and subtle gestures are not possible, and Streep's role is especially extreme, but the film is beautifully realized, and its thematic development is sensitive and memorable. Mary Whipple
Rating: 
Summary: Stellar cast and director can't save this turkey!
Review: God, what a disappointment! I am a huge fan of both Meryl Streep and Michael Gambon, and I know Brian Friel has written some wonderful plays and screenplays -- so I couldn't believe what a dismal bore this turned out to be. As other reviewers have said, practically NOTHING happens, except that these five lonely, pathetic, spinster sisters sit around and bicker at each other. Streep's character is a priggish, joyless nag who makes her sisters even more depressed than they already have reason to be. At times the film seems to be building up to some climactic event (somebody will die or get knocked up), but then... nothing. And the sisters' big, exuberant dance scene near the end seemed totally fake and tacked-on to me -- I suspect they included that just so they could put it in the movie's trailer!
Rating: 
Summary: mediocre, at best
Review: I really looked forward to the arrival of my copy of this video. Yes, I actually bought it! Only because it's impossible to find at video rental stores. (perhaps I know why, now) I'm usually quite an 'easy audience' for all things Celtic... be it music, films, storylines... but this? Well, it was a big disappointment. I found myself frequently glancing up at the clock wondering how far along into the movie I was. I kept waiting for *something* to happen. It never really does. The emotional and moral (?) conflict and differences between the sisters was flat, uninteresting and petty. And the resolution of those differences...well, all ended in a very anti-climatic, boring ending, hardly seen as a resolution for anyone. This movie might be watchable...but only once, in my opinion. I may as well sell my copy in the Amazon auctions, I know I'll never watch it again.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent, sensitive story
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed this Irish tale of the ongoing relationship of five sisters and their brother. I found it very poignant, and definitely of the quality of film, Ms. Streep associates with her name. Beautiful film, lovely music. Wonderful character development.
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