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ABC News
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- ABC News
Four Letters of Love, starring Pierce Brosnan and Helena Bonham Carter, is a saccharine tale of love and fate
If the romance genre lives and dies on chemistry, can you make a compelling film about lovers before they even meet? Fast Facts about Four Letters of Love What: A magical realism romance about two would-be lovers in 1970s Ireland Starring: Fionn O'Shea, Ann Skelly, Pierce Brosnan, Helena Bonham Carter Directed by: Polly Steele Where: In cinemas now Likely to make you feel: Unenchanted In 1993, Nora Ephron decisively answered this question with Sleepless in Seattle, which played coy as to whether Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks's characters would even meet until its final scene — but spent its preceding 90 minutes articulating the dreams and desires of its incomplete, but perfectly interlocking halves. Il Mare and its American remake, The Lake House, separated its characters not by distance but by years, building its epistolary romance around a time-twisting mailbox. Four Letters of Love, an adaptation of Niall Williams's novel of the same name, is a magical realist tale of far-flung lovers in 1970s Ireland whose lives coalesce around the mystical, intertwining forces of coincidence, tragedy, and divine intervention. Two earth-shattering events set the parallel plots in motion. William (Pierce Brosnan), a civil servant, is seemingly sent a divine order to leave his job and family to pursue an artist's life, leaving his frail wife (Imelda May) in the care of his son Nicholas (Fionn O'Shea, Dating Amber). Meanwhile, on a windy isle off Ireland's west coast, a gifted musician, Sean (Dónal Finn), suffers a paralysing fall. Sometime later, Sean's sister Isabel (Ann Skelly, The Sandman) sets off for the mainland to complete her education at a convent school, while Nicholas traces the steps of his wayward father in the wake of a tragedy. As he heads west, he briefly crosses paths with Isabel on a bus — but still, they remain strangers, and continue to go their separate ways. For all his recklessness, William has been gifted with formidable creative drive, which unlocks his son's own talent for poetry when they reunite. Yet Nicholas remains a bystander in his own story, forced to contend with arbitrary tragedies rather than exercise his own volition. William's search for artistic fulfilment more intuitively aligns with Isabel's rebellious streak, which drives her to neglect her education in favour of chasing after Peader (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo), a roguish older boy. Armed with a crooked smile (and, more importantly, a car), Peader initially presents as a throwaway fling to stave off the boredom of convent school life. But when Isabel is kicked out of school, Peader unexpectedly ends up offering a home as well as paid work at his family's store. Four Letters of Love is not so much a love story as it is a melodrama of fate, and a lousy one at that. There are only so many deaths, miracles, and declarations of love you can throw into a film before it feels like you're gorging on treacle. Still, there's potential for compelling drama amid such chaos; for every incredulous plot contrivance that's explicitly handwaved as an act of God, it remains to be seen whether Nicholas and Isabel have the courage to follow their own hearts when their paths finally collide — especially when other romantic prospects stand in the way. There's no irony in Williams's laughably sensational (sometimes borderline offensive) twists, nor is there any intensity of emotion. Even its cast of veteran actors, which extends to Helena Bonham Carter and Gabriel Byrne as Isabel's parents, can only add so much respectability. The film's best scenes hinge upon the relationship between Isabel and her mother Margaret, who gently attempts to coax her daughter out of her misguided life choices, even if Bonham Carter is straddled with a hokey screenplay ("Falling in love — well that's the easy part," she sighs at one point). Squandered, too, is the expansive beauty of Ireland's west coast under Polly Steele's rote direction. Emerald seas and cascading sand dunes are drained by a colour palette of anaemic greys and browns, that tired visual hallmark of period cinema. It may only take four letters to spell out love — but when it comes to this film, there's another word that strongly comes to mind. Four Letters of Love is in cinemas now.
Irish Times
18-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Four Letters of Love review: Every interior in this preposterous film suggests an Irish theme pub in 1990s Basingstoke
Four Letters of Love Director : Polly Steele Cert : 12A Starring : Helena Bonham Carter, Pierce Brosnan, Gabriel Byrne, Ann Skelly, Fionn O'Shea, Imelda May, Ferdia Walsh Peelo Running Time : 1 hr 49 mins Are we still bleeding doing this? Really? Are we still modelling our entertainment on a best bet of how Americans like to imagine us? Every interior in this preposterous adaptation of an admired Niall Williams novel suggests an Irish theme pub in 1990s Basingstoke. Oh, to have been in the antique spinning-wheel business or the rusty bike trade when the production came to town. The script believes we are never more than a syllable away from semi-spiritual claptrap. We will get to the accents later. If asked what the film was about – or to what the title referred – one would need to reveal Shakespearean shenanigans in the closing 15 minutes. So, for fear of spoilers, we will assume you are not asking that. To that point, Four Letters of Love has concerned two largely parallel stories. In Dublin of the early 1970s, young Nicholas Coughlan (Fionn O'Shea) is living in uneasy suburban comfort with mum Bette (Imelda May) and dad William ( Pierce Brosnan ) when the latter has a sort of secular revelation. Sitting at his desk, William spots a rectangle of light and decides he will move from a role for which Pierce Brosnan is mildly miscast to a role in which he is grossly miscast: he will cease being a civil servant and take up life as a hairy, staff-wielding painter in the west of Ireland. You know? The sort of vaguely Druidical figure you move away from when he sidles beside you in the bus queue. Meanwhile, on an island in that very part of the world, Muiris ( Gabriel Byrne ), poet-teacher, and Margaret (no really, it's Helena Bonham Carter), his wise wife, are going through their own school of picturesque trauma. One sad day, their son Sean (Dónal Finn) has a mysterious fit while playing the penny whistle as his sister Issy (Ann Skelly) dances merrily upon a cliff. He ends up in a wheelchair. Issy is sent off to board with nuns who, though stern, are benign enough to satisfy those people constantly whining online about how films are, these days, too mean to the sisters. READ MORE Indeed, Four Letters seems intent on offering us an idealised portrait of Ireland in an often-miserable period. The closest thing to an avatar of modernity is Peadar (Ferdia Walsh Peelo), the low-level hell-raiser who lures Issy away from school with his motorcar and his interest in ersatz pop music. Four Letters is far too good-natured to make a monster of Peadar – he is more Cliff Richard than James Dean – but, early on, we realise Issy would be better off with someone like … oh, I don't know, maybe the thoughtful, intense, furrowed Nicholas. But how will that happen? He is in a whole other story. [ Pierce Brosnan: 'I had no qualifications. I was really behind the eight ball – without a mother, without a father' Opens in new window ] Williams's novel has a huge following and, in print, I don't doubt the messages stand out uncompromised. Overseas viewers may be more open to a hyperglycaemic depiction of Ireland that would give the makers of Netflix Micksploitation pause for thought. As in The Banshees of Inisherin, the visuals mirror the aesthetic of John Hinde postcards, but are here unseasoned with the cruel irony that Martin McDonagh provides (whatever you think of that writer). Little blame attaches to the cast. Brosnan, as ever in such situations, touches vowels from all 32 counties in his effort to master an Irish accent not his own. Skelly and O'Shea are stars. The admirable Olwen Fouéré, playing a near silent bystander, satisfies an apparent contractual obligation that she appear in every rural drama. Only a monster could object to the delightful pairing of Byrne and HBC (whose accent isn't too bad). Get them back together in a better film as soon as possible. In cinemas from July 18th
