The Last September , adapted from a novel by Elizabeth Bowen, concerns a family in Ireland's County Cork in 1920, and it has a melancholy, Chekovian feel. These are people gripping a past while it is rapidly turning to dust in their hands. He busies himself with gadgets, and she worries over the roses and the insurgency of ants making their abode on the house's front step. The couple are unfailingly gracious and courteous, politely but firmly upholding class divisions, inviting friends for an afternoon of tennis on the lawn, and showing concern that Sir Richard's orphaned niece Lois not get seriously infatuated with the young British captain who is in love with her. He doesn't, concludes Lady Myra, have the look of money.
Brutality surrounds their false serenity.
Soldiers are being murdered by local Irish rebels, and the most violent among them is Peter Connolly, a local lad who had been a friend of Lois in earlier years. As Lois, British actress Keeley Hawkes has the fresh beauty and child-like naturalness before the camera of the young Audrey Hepburn. Despite knowing that Connolly is a killer, she is attracted to him, and what begins as a harmless game of defying authority turns ugly. Innocence is betrayed, and Lois unwittingly becomes the cause of another's death. As a family guest and catalyst for the final horror, Irish actress Fiona Shaw shines with the brilliance and cold cheer of a well-cut diamond.