This is an excellent film which really should have a wider audience. I saw it (free) at the 2012 Listowel Writers Week in County Kerry, and the still very rural atmosphere helped me to travel back in time. I really wish the film had been longer as it tries, quite successfully, to set the tenor of the period(the 50s) At that time, Ireland was a priest- ridden impoverished hole. I remember as I was a kid at the time and the level of poverty was terrible. The themes are will drawn. Martin Sheen is a decent actor and they cobble a background to explain his American accent. He makes a fair stab of it but it needs an Irish actor to give it pathos. The film is shot in Fethard in Tipperary and it gives it a realistic setting. Seen through the eyes of a young boy, whose alcoholic father's absence is so poignant, the film possibly should have been more tragic. The priest struggles to give some value to his hopeless life and his nemesis in the Bishop played by the late Tom Hickey reminded me of the marvellous Father Ted series, but only in so far as Fr Ted was completely credible. The Stephen Rae characterl who has political ambitions, is not overplayed, and his opposition to cinematic filth quite credible. He feels the priest naive as he feels he doesn't get'how things really work' and that politics and power require you to sell your soul. He of course has not compunction in the matter. The young and idealistic schoolteacher, whose career is saved by the priest, gaily waltzes off into the future to 'get involved in politics'. This is not so much a narrative as a slice of life from a harsh time. As the priest says 'I thought I would find some meaning here. But its just poor-and damp'
Review of Stella Days
