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.… Expand

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.

I loved the movie, thought that it was great!!