Ralph Waldo Emerson once noted: "There is a capacity for virtue in us, and there is a capacity of vice to make your blood creep." Both these aspects of human nature are revealed in this compelling drama written and directed by Paul Quinn and filmed on location in Ireland.
When Kieran Johnson (James Caan), a middle-aged schoolteacher, discovers some photos from his mute and paralyzed mother's past, he decides to visit Ireland in search of more information on the father he never knew. He takes along his adolescent nephew Jack (Jacob Tierney) in hopes that this search for their ethnic roots will help straighten him out. While the boy has his self-esteem bolstered by contact with two local girls, Kieran settles down to hear the story of his father from Mrs. Kearney (Moira Deady), a Tarot card reader.
In 1939, Kieran's mother Fiona (Moya Farrelly in a stellar performance) falls in love with Kieran O'Day (Aidan Quinn), an orphaned tenement farmer who works for the elderly couple who has raised him. Her depressed alcoholic mother, widow Flynn (Gina Moxley), has high hopes for her daughter and holds most of the villagers in contempt. Other obstacles to the lovers are two hellfire and brimstone preaching priests (Stephen Rea and Eamonn Morrissey). In the end, this emotionally rich drama speaks poignantly about the passion of love and the power of curses.