After a mostly problematic sojourn in America, the nadir being Universal re-editing the limp and confused Daniel Craig vehicle Dream House, Jim Sheridan returns to the Irish characters and themes of his three masterpieces: My Left Foot, In the Name of the Father, and In America. Sadly, it is a rather uneventful homecoming. An old-fashioned wartime romance doubling as an indictment of the Catholic Church and its cruel institutionalizing of women, the film's heart is in the right place, and it is handsomely designed and photographed, but it never achieves sure footing. Relationships, either loving or antagonistic, do not have the required depth or impact. Key developments are rushed while certain characters' motivations go largely unexplored. Despite being played by two of the finest actresses of their respective generations, Rooney Mara and Vanessa Redgrave, heroine Roseanne is a curiously inert presence. And it builds to a twist ending so saccharine and unearned as to be insulting. There are far superior films covering similar historical and thematic ground: The Magdalene Sisters for a sharp and sobering account, Philomena for a more accessible one.

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