The final film of legendary director John Huston was based on the closing story of James Joyce's Dubliners. Anjelica Huston is top-billed as Gretta Conroy, the niece by marriage of turn-of-century Irish spinsters Kate Morkan (Helena Carroll) and Julia Morkan (Cathleen Delany). At the home of these two curious ladies, Gretta is prodded into remembering her long-dead lover. She tearfully reveals to her husband (Donal McCann) that the deceased boy may well have died on her behalf. Her tale of woe
bespeaks the sentiment shared by James Joyce: no matter how long in their graves, the dead will always influence the living. Adding to the film's elegiac quality, it stars Huston's daughter Anjelica and was co-written with his son Tony Huston. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
There's also a rather awesome and unpretentious directness as well as calmness about the way that Huston contemplates his own rapidly approaching death.
A well-crafted miniature, this dramatization of the Joyce story directly addresses the theme of how the 'shades' from 'that other world' can still live in those who still walk the earth.
That Huston should have dared search for the story's cinema life is astonishing. That he should have found it with such seeming ease is the mark of a master.
There's a certain disarming sweetness to the film. The scenes are lit in amber warmth and Joyce's Dublin fable of lost hopes and living memories is treated with respect. But the acting pool is only adequate.
Huston was an old man when he died, but he had not withered dismally with age because he still had the courage and the imagination to attempt to make an impossible film of the greatest story that he had ever read.
... a perfect cinematic short story attuned to the rituals and touchy relationships of family and friends gathering in early twentieth century Dublin...
The Dead celebrates the beauty of the English language, the challenges of marital love and the intimations of mortality which can bring us back to an exaltation of life.
This is a boring watch. However, it is important to keep in mind that it's intentional. The story is supposed to be awkward, so to the audience, the film will assuredly come across as boring. Still, this was a brilliant adaptation of the famous James Joyce novel. Most of the characters were true to the book with only a
few flaws here and there. The tone and setting was spot on, though. Overall, watcheable, but not necessarily the most enjoyable film I have seen.
April 18, 2011
Jameson Worley
Super Reviewer
I really didn't care for this movie. I've already forgotten what it was about.
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