Very disappointing

Rating: 3/10 (4 January 2012)

I had high expectations given the Palme d'Or, but was disappointed on multiple levels.
First of all, the film watches like a political statement, and not a wisest or deepest one at that. Best illustrated by the court scene, which was supposed to have viewer sympathy on the poor woman's side but in practice was just a bit primitive altogether.
Everything is absolute in the film: all British are bad (except for single "good" ones), all rich are just ripping off the poor, all anti-Treaty forces are principled people, while pro-Treaty are motivated by opportunism. I'm neither Irish nor British and English is my second language, so I couldn't care less about either side, but I just know (from experience in other conflict zones) that life is usually more complex than that.
On top of that, the dialogue is at times very unrealistic; whenever there is a bit of tension everybody just yells their heads off, especially the British. Sometimes the lines are downright primitive, trying to over-emphasize the political points in case someone missed them.
The plot itself can be summed up in four lines, and would take much less then 2-hour movie to convey.
Overall, seems like an attempt to capitalize on (exploit?) a topic that I guess is controversial for some audiences. To an outside observer this looked like a lot of anxiety and emotion (on the part of film's creators) with very little substance.