Nineteen-year-old Danny Flynn is imprisoned for his involvement with the I.R.A. in Belfast. He leaves behind his family and his sixteen-year-old girlfriend, Maggie Hamill. Fourteen years later, Danny is released from prison and returns to his old working class neighborhood to resume his life as a boxer.
Acting
Day-Lewis and Watson communicate decades in silent glances.
Direction
Sheridan captures Belfast's powder-keg tension without sensationalism.
Cinematography
Bleach-bypassed film stock gives every frame bruised melancholy.
Director
Jim Sheridan
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Day-Lewis trained with former Irish boxing champion Barry McGuigan for 18 months, living in Belfast throughout. He refused on-set dialect coaching, insisting his immersion had made it automatic.
Released months after the 1997 IRA ceasefire, the film's 'what if we stopped' optimism felt dangerously fragile. Sheridan later admitted he feared the peace wouldn't hold through production.
IE
US
