Product: Nora [VHS] (2000)
Rating: 3.0
For James-Joyce-philes only...
The namesake of the movie was the wife of the Irish writer, James Joyce. The film is an idealized period pice about their relationship.Apart fom being one of the twentieth centuries most influential writers, Joyce was also one of the most cerebral. Nora was his complement-a salty, earthy, uneducated, unrepressed Irish girl. I don't think the film brought out the contrast between the two, enough. In Nora, the church, intellect, and Victorian cursed Joyce found the passionate, lusty, unrepressed Ireland that he felt should have been. Cerebral literary critics like to think Nora was a major source of Joyce's inspiritation.The matrimonial issue of what movie to rent, is what will I and the Missus both like enough? With the Missus, the words boring and Irish movie usually occur in the same breath. I warned her this would be a REAL boring Irish movie.The first half held it's own. I detected interest on the Missus' part, and she wouldn't know James Joyce from somebody at the saloon on the corner. As much as she denies it, she is always drawn in by a strong female role. The middle and later parts of the film get into details of James's and Nora's life in Continental Europe. It is not very dramatic, at least not for me.What's of interst in James Joyce is what went on inside his head, but that is hard to show in a movie! It was by marriage to Nora that James tried to complete himself.I think that Nora's character was done a little too stiff, a little too Victorian proper. I did get a real sense of a strong back-boned woman, in the way that Irish women can be.I could say much more, but that's enough...