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Love Divided, A
Cinema Guild

Love Divided, A reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 52 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
8.0 out of 10
based on 13 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 6 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: Not Rated

Starring Nicole Bohan, Melissa Bolger, Sarah Bolger, Orla Brady, and Peter Caffrey

The dramatic true story of a marriage between a Catholic man and a Protestant woman in 1950's Ireland.


GENRE(S): Drama  
WRITTEN BY: Deirdre Dowling
Gerry Gregg
Stuart Hepburn
 
DIRECTED BY: Sydney Macartney  
RELEASE DATE: DVD: July 30, 2002 
Video: July 30, 2002 
Theatrical: June 1, 2001 
RUNNING TIME: 98 minutes, Color 
ORIGIN: Ireland / UK 

Winner of Best Film and Best Actor (Cunningham) Awards at the 2000 Cherbourg-Octeville Festival of Irish & British Film

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

80
Washington Post Stephen Hunter
Stunningly acted by Liam Cunningham and Orla Brady as the Cloneys.
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75
Miami Herald Marta Barber
Will leave you taking sides, whether or not that was the film's intent.
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75
New York Daily News Jack Mathews
If it weren't based on a true story, you might suspect Sydney McCartney's A Love Divided was created by a panel of militant Irish Protestants.
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75
San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
An Irish drama that's a lot more sly and a lot less straightforward than it appears on the surface.
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75
Boston Globe Loren King
Solid, balanced period piece that focuses on a specific place and time yet resonates with universal themes.
70
The New York Times Stephen Holden
Although the film is well acted from top to bottom, its dramatic spark plug is Mr. Doyle's terrifying portrayal of Father Stafford.
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60
TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
While the film's exploration of Irish religious intolerance takes it to many familiar areas, the specifics are unfamiliar and fine performances -- especially those of leads Cunningham and Brady.
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50
Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan
It's like a PBS version of a movie of the week about child abduction, complete with histrionic, spit-flecked speechifying in quaint Irish brogues.
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40
LA Weekly Paul Malcolm
In the end, Macartney and screenwriter Stuart Hepburn decide that love conquers all, which may have been the way it happened but doesn't leave the film with much going on.
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40
Village Voice Jessica Winter
Brady and Cunningham share a volatile, symbiotic chemistry, sketching in elegant shorthand the rhythms of a lusty, combative marriage.
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38
New York Post Lou Lumenick
Has precious little to add to the canon -- and does so in a highly melodramatic manner.
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30
Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones
The actors do a fine, if unsoulful, job, but the real problem with A Love Divided is its unwillingness to unromanticize its heroes.
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30
New Times (L.A.) Luke Y. Thompson
What saves the film from utter forgettability are the strong supporting performances, especially from Peter Caffrey as the town atheist, and Tony Doyle.
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What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 8.0 (out of 10) based on 6 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Kevin B. gave it an8:
This is an intersting film as there's a subetxt that many critics - apart from the San Francisco critic Mick LaSalle - have missed. I'm referring to the undercurrent which is easy to miss if you just read it as a Romeo & Juliet with religion as the dividing line. The film is good on bigotry and intolerance but the performances are what put it in a different league from a join-the-dots PBS social drama. As LaSalle points out, the real engine of the film is the clash of wills between the Protestant mother and the Catholic parish priest. Indeed, this critic provactively suggests that she can be interpreted as going out of her way to provoke the crisis in Wexford because of her contempt for the smug, controlling priest. LaSalle thinks that this potentially subverts the story's criticism of patriarchy but I think it actually sharpens it. The mother becomes like a Rosa Parks - we ain't going to take it any more, in other words it's not just an individual act , it is an act taken on behalf of oppressed and repressed minorities (and women) irrespective of the specific culture.

Tami N. gave it a 10:
This movie should be viewed as a story of what bigotry and intolerance in any form can do to a family, friends, and neighbors - not as another story on the Irish situation. The performances are all top drawer (especially Liam Cunningham and Orla Brady) and it is a poignant story well told.

Winslow E. gave it a 9:
Well directed, beautifully photographed.

Lynn W. gave it a 10:
I loved the movie, thought that it was great!!

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