Synopsis
In 1920s Ireland young doctor Damien O'Donovan prepares to depart for a new job in a London hospital. As he says his goodbyes at a friend's farm, British Black and Tans arrive, and a young man is killed. Damien joins his brother Teddy in the Irish Republican Army, but political events are soon set in motion that tear the brothers apart.
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Cast
- Cillian MurphyDamien O'Donovan
- Pádraic DelaneyTeddy
- Liam CunninghamDan
- Orla FitzgeraldSinead
- Gerard KearneyDonacha
- William RuaneJohnny Gogan
- Roger AllamSir John Hamilton
- Laurence BarryMicheail
- Sabrina BarryJulia
- Kieran AherneSweeney
Recommendations
- 90
The New Yorker
A sombrely beautiful dream of the violent Irish past. Refusing the standard flourishes of Irish wildness or lyricism, Loach has made a film for our moment, a time of bewildering internecine warfare. - 90
The New York Times
The history presented in The Wind That Shakes the Barley hardly feels like a closed book or a museum display. It is as alive and as troubling as anything on the evening news, though far more thoughtful and beautiful. - 88
New York Daily News
Beautifully shot, both in darkened homes and on the misty green Irish landscape by Loach's frequent cinematographer Barry Aykroyd, "Wind" has a you-are-there intensity and intimacy about it that make it nearly overwhelming. But for all its violence and subsequent sadness, it's a movie of extraordinary importance. - 80
Village Voice
Like Jean-Pierre Melville's recently rediscovered "Army of Shadows," The Wind That Shakes the Barley possesses the soul of an anti-war movie and the style of a thriller. - 75
Entertainment Weekly
If Loach had given full voice to each side of this division, he could have made a great film -- maybe THE great film -- about the Irish struggle. - 75
The A.V. Club
There's a kind of dry tastefulness about The Wind That Shakes The Barley's historical recreations, even when Loach is staging rapes and executions. - 75
Christian Science Monitor
Intermittently gripping, but overlong. - 75
Premiere
It's a film that approaches greatness and then fumbles.
