DVD Watch

The Eclipse

In the quantifying grief sweepstakes, is it more devastating for a father to lose a daughter, a child to lose a mother, or a husband to lose a wife? The question is pondered aloud on more than one occasion by the satellite of wounded survivors that form The Eclipse, a curious little Irish film from acclaimed playwright Conor McPherson. With the corners of his mouth soured down like Sam the Eagle, Ciarán Hinds (There Will Be Blood) plays new widower Michael Farr, a woodshop teacher trying to raise two preteens and manage a sickly father-in-law in the wake of his wife’s death to cancer. Farr means well, and tries hard, but he’s barely keeping his head above water. For distraction, he volunteers at a local literary festival, where he meets a lovely author of nonfiction books on the paranormal (played by High Fidelity‘s Iben Hjejle) and a boorish drunk of a bestselling novelist (Aidan Quinn, with gusto). McPherson, best known for his prize-winning breakout play The Weir, makes precision work of the complicated dynamics of the three leads, and the film’s uncommon focus on the slow bloom of a midlife relationship is a pleasure. Ah, but did I mention the ghoul who keeps time in the wardrobe? The Eclipse premiered at last year’s Tribeca Film Festival to positive reviews, and though it never saw wide release in America, it’s been quietly building buzz as it rolled out on DVD early this summer. It deserves the good notices – the leads are terrific; McPherson, belying his stage-bound background, uses a roaming camera to eerie effect; and his wife, Fionnuala Ní Chiosáin, an amateur musician, supplies a piano- and choral-heavy score that is crucial to the film’s atmospherics – but, frankly, if The Eclipse weren’t plunked down in Ireland, where the supernatural is supposedly quotidian, then I think significantly less slack would be cut for the half-cooked ghost story.

This article appears in August 6 • 2010.