A 'women in prison' movie with a difference, Silent Grace sets up an intriguing premise but never gets round to doing much with it. While director Maeve Murphy should be applauded for alerting us to the way in which the contribution of female political prisoners to the Republican struggle has been marginalised in the Irish history books, her one-sided storytelling and paper-thin characterisation is less praiseworthy. In The Name Of The Mother this certainly isn't.
The year is 1980. In Armagh Women's Prison in Northern Ireland, a group of IRA political prisoners are carrying out a protest against the British government. Into this harsh world is thrown Aine (Catherine Bradley), a feckless teenager convicted of joyriding, whose cocky presence threatens to disrupt the carefully ordered hierarchies of the political wing.
Uninterested in her fellow inmates' battle and unimpressed by their dirty protest - which involves them scouring the walls with their own excrement - Aine quickly falls foul of IRA ringleader Eileen (Orla Brady), who's determined that the women under her command will be just as committed as their male counterparts.
"GENERAL AIR OF CLUMSINESS"
Based on a true story and shot on the cheap on location in Kilmainham prison, this debut feature from writer-director Murphy foregrounds the forgotten history of the female prison protests during the 1980s but fails to set the dramatic touch paper alight.
Awkwardly directed, the film's hampered by a general air of clumsiness, from the oh-so-ironic use of The Clash's I Fought The Law on the soundtrack to the minimalist prison that's comprised of nothing more than ten prisoners, two guards, a warden (Conor Mullen), and kindly priest (comedian Robert Newman). A few extras might have given it the pretence of hustle and bustle, but instead it seems stilted and empty, and more suited to an experimental stage play.
Silent Grace (2004)
