| Tara Road | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | Gillies MacKinnon |
| Written by | Cynthia Cidre Shane Connaughton |
| Starring |
|
| Cinematography | John de Borman |
| Music by | John E. Keane |
Production company | |
Release date | 2005 |
Running time | 97 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | €10-15 million [1] [2] |
Tara Road is a 2005 film directed by Gillies MacKinnon. It is based on the 1998 novel of the same name by Maeve Binchy. [3]
Without ever having met and 5,000 kilometers apart, Marilyn Vine and Ria Lynch, trade houses. They're both looking for an escape from their grieving and marital crises. By running away, both come to discover a great deal about themselves and to face their problems at home.
Living in suburban Connecticut, upper middle class Marilyn and her college professor husband Greg Vine are grieving over their fifteen year old son Dale’s recent death in a tragic motorcycle accident. Unable to cope, Marilyn views her marriage as collateral damage.
Dublin residing Ria learns from her property manager husband Danny Lynch that not only does he not want to have another child with her as she does, but that he has fallen in love with another woman who is pregnant with his child.
Rather than a planned Hawaiian getaway with Greg, Marilyn tries to contact Danny, who Greg had met long ago at a business function. She wants to arrange a two month house swap with someone in Dublin, as she feels she needs to go somewhere to be alone. She actually contacts Ria, who also needs to get away from her own situation. So, she agrees to the house swap on the spot, whose two children, teenage Annie and adolescent Brian, will stay with Danny for the first month before joining her in Connecticut.
Complete opposites, reserved Marilyn keeps Dale’s death from everyone in Ireland, including Ria and Ria feels the need to tell everyone in the States about Danny leaving her. Neither Marilyn or Ria know what to expect in their new surroundings.
There are unofficial welcoming committees on each side of the Atlantic, composed of Marilyn and Ria's closest friends. Both Marilyn and Ria make a special connection with someone in the other's life. Marilyn finds solace in Ria's garden and becomes friends with restaurateur Colm Maguire, who is tending to Ria's garden in her absence, and Ria gets a job cooking, and has a date or two with Greg’s brother Andy. Beyond these connections, each of Marilyn and Ria's lives at home continue without them.
Meanwhile, Ria's husband Danny’s economic and personal problems seem to bring ruin to those close to him. Thanks to Marilyn working with his mother, they find a way to save the house on Tara Road.
The two women’s new experiences help them view their life changes slightly differently than before and they are able to move ahead as stronger people.
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Tara Road is the fourth Maeve Binchy novel to be adapted for film or television. [6] Binchy said she once swapped her house in London to stay in Sydney, Australia, but that the story was not autobiographical "because nothing would be duller than reading about two happily married, settled couples, which is what we and they were", although the trip did inspire the story. [4] She praised the writers for condensing her 600 page novel into a 109-page script. [7] The filmmakers asked Binchy which location in Dublin she had been thinking of for Tara Road and she told them but the real location proved impractical and they instead found a different location like the one she had in mind. [4]
Filming took place in Cape Town, South Africa, for three weeks for the scenes set in Connecticut. [7]
Kenilworth Square area of Rathgar, Dublin, was the location of titular Tara Road. [7] Caviston's deli and restaurant in Glasthule, Dublin, was used for filming. [5]
The film premiered at the Savoy Cinema, Dublin, on September 29, 2005. [8] [9]
Michael Dwyer of The Irish Times called it a "sketchy, conventional melodrama" and said the film "has the distinct whiff of a movie made for export, and it lacks the realistic grounding of the only earlier Binchy film, Circle of Friends (1995)." Dwyer was critical of the adaptation from the book, as the editing had left "gaps in the narrative and characterisation." [10] [11] Padraic McKiernan of the Irish Independent was positive about MacDowell's star quality, but found the ending farcical. [12]
In 2007, producer Noel Pearson called the film a disappointment, saying: "There was no chemistry there, and you could see that on the screen. It was one of those things that just disintegrated from day one. You never know what's going to happen." [13]
It topped the Irish box office on the week of its release taking over €200,000, with a worldwide total of over $875,000, mostly from the UK. [14] [15]
The film was released on DVD October 9, 2007. [16]
Anne Maeve Binchy Snell was an Irish novelist, playwright, short story writer, columnist, and speaker. Her novels were characterised by a sympathetic and often humorous portrayal of small-town life in Ireland, and surprise endings. Her novels, which were translated into 37 languages, sold more than 40 million copies worldwide. Her death at age 73, announced by Vincent Browne on Irish television late on 30 July 2012, was mourned as the death of one of Ireland's best-loved and most recognisable writers.
The Glass Lake is a 1994 novel by the Irish author Maeve Binchy. The action takes place in a rural Irish village as well as in London in the 1950s. It is notable as the last of Binchy's novels to be set in the 1950s. Binchy explores the roles of women in Irish society and inconstant lovers, and uses an operatic plot to hold the reader's attention.
Tara Road is a novel by Maeve Binchy. It was chosen as an Oprah's Book Club selection in September 1999.
Evening Class is a 1996 novel by the Irish author Maeve Binchy. It was adapted as the award-winning film Italian for Beginners (2000) by writer-director Lone Scherfig, who failed to formally acknowledge the source, although at the very end of the closing credits is the line 'with thanks to Maeve Binchy'.
Quentins is a 2002 novel by the Irish author Maeve Binchy. The title refers to Quentins Restaurant, a fictional upscale dining establishment in central Dublin, Ireland. The restaurant was referenced numerous times in previous Binchy titles; this novel explores its 30-year history as well as the lives of its patrons. The novel was produced as a BBC Word for Word audiobook in 2003.
Deirdre Purcell was an Irish author, actress, and journalist.
Light a Penny Candle is a 1982 novel by the Irish author Maeve Binchy. Her debut novel, it follows the friendship between an English girl and an Irish girl over the course of three decades, beginning with the English girl's stay in Ireland during the Blitz. It is one of Binchy's best-known novels.
Circle of Friends is a 1990 novel by the Irish author Maeve Binchy. Set in Dublin, as well as in the fictitious town of Knockglen in rural Ireland during the 1950s, the story centres on a group of university students. The novel was adapted into a 1995 feature film directed by Pat O'Connor.
Firefly Summer is a 1987 novel by the Irish author Maeve Binchy. Set in an Irish small town, this third novel by Binchy depicts the changes that affected the country in the late twentieth century. BBC Radio 4 produced a 6-episode, 3-hour dramatization of the novel in 2008.
Circle of Friends is a 1995 film directed by Irish filmmaker Pat O'Connor, and based on the 1990 novel of the same name written by Maeve Binchy.
The Copper Beech is a 1992 novel by the Irish author Maeve Binchy. Set in the 1950s and 1960s, the storyline follows the lives of 12 characters living in a small Irish town, in chapters with interlocking plot elements. The novel was recorded as a BBC audiobook in 2007.
The Radio Éireann Players (RÉP) were a repertory company for radio in Ireland, formed in 1947, which performed in regular drama productions for Irish broadcaster, Radio Éireann. After the depredations of the war-time years and a devastating fire in the Abbey Theatre in 1951, the Radio Éireann Players' powerful weekly performances inspired interest in drama throughout the country. Their effect has been compared to an effort at national re-invention, in the same way that the national theatre fifty years earlier had been an attempt to redefine Irish identity.
Echoes is a 1985 novel by the Irish author Maeve Binchy. As Binchy's second novel, it explores various themes of Irish small-town life, including social classes and expectations, the paucity of educational opportunities before the introduction of free secondary education in 1967, and women's roles. A four-part television miniseries was adapted from the novel in 1988.
New Island Books is an independent Irish publisher of literary fiction, poetry, drama, biography, and books on politics and social affairs.
Deeply Regretted By... is a 1978 television play starring Joan O'Hara and Donall Farmer, with the script being written by Maeve Binchy. The movie is based upon the Binchy story Death of Kilburn that ran in The Irish Times and deals with issues of bigamy and emigration.
Gordon Snell is a British author of children's literature and scriptwriter. He was married to Irish author Maeve Binchy from 1977 until her death in 2012. He lives in the home that he shared with his late wife in Dalkey, outside of Dublin, Ireland.
Minding Frankie is a 2010 novel by the Irish author Maeve Binchy.
Silver Wedding is a 1988 novel by the Irish author Maeve Binchy. Set in London, Dublin, and the west of Ireland in the year 1985, the novel explores the lives and inner feelings of a couple and their family and friends who are about to celebrate the couple's 25th wedding anniversary.
Chestnut Street is a 2014 short story collection by the Irish author Maeve Binchy. It was published posthumously by her husband, Gordon Snell. It contains 36 short stories, the majority never before published, which Binchy had written over a period of decades. Each story centers around a different resident or family living on or connected to the fictional Chestnut Street in Dublin.
Róisín Ingle is an Irish writer – a journalist, columnist and editor – as well as a podcast presenter and producer. She grew up in Sandymount, Dublin and, except for a brief stint in the UK, has lived and worked in Ireland for most of her life. She started working at the Sunday Tribune and then moved to the Irish Times in the late 1990s, where she has worked since, notably producing a widely read lifestyle column, working as a features editor and producing multiple series of podcasts. Selections of her columns, which number more than 4,000, have been collected in two books. Ingle has also co-produced and contributed to another publication, and edited others, notably a collection of work by Maeve Binchy.
The result is a sketchy, thoroughly conventional melodrama that squanders all the talent on both sides of the camera.