The career of Jim Sheridan is something of an oddity. In Ireland, his work has been universally lauded, from Oscar-winning debut My Left Foot to powerful IRA drama In the Name of the Father. He then dipped his toe into the US with immigration tale In America, a film that still retained a strong Irish narrative, and also led to more awards glory.
But since then, he’s shaken off his homeland and the results have gone from underwhelming to disastrous. There was the vapid 50 Cent vehicle Get Rich or Die Tryin’, the entirely unnecessary remake of Susanne Bier’s Brothers and the staggeringly bad Daniel Craig thriller Dream House. It’s perhaps understandable that he’s eager to return to the country where he’s most loved, but regrettably, his latest film isn’t quite the comeback many might have hoped for.
On paper, The Secret Scripture seems like a doozy. It’s based on an acclaimed novel by Sebastian Barry that was shortlisted for the Man Booker prize. It focuses on a painful time in Irish history and recruits an impressive cast of established and promising actors. Vanessa Redgrave plays Rose, a woman who’s been living in a decrepit, soon-to-be demolished mental health hospital for 50 years. She’s been keeping a secret diary of her time there and when a psychiatrist, played by Eric Bana, is called in to assess her condition, she relives the circumstances that led her there.
Rooney Mara plays the young Rose whose arrival in a small village in 1940s Ireland causes two men, a fighter pilot and a priest, played by Jack Reynor and Theo James, to develop feelings for her. But the strict community soon turns against her and a chain of tragic events leads to a devastating injustice.
The rich dramatic material at play and the fascinating historical backdrop means there’s plenty here that proves initially appealing. The young Rose is trapped by her sexuality, arousing interest in men without the slightest provocation on her part yet facing the full force of blame from those around her. The film briefly explores the complicated rituals of dating at the time and the dangers of a bruised male ego when a woman dares to turn a man down.
Mara is a compelling actor, her face always hinting at hidden depths, no matter how shallow the material around her might be. But here, that only goes so far as the script, co-written by Sheridan, gives her very little to work with. Young Rose, initially feisty, becomes an unknowable non-entity. We never truly understand her and Mara quickly becomes visibly bored. She also seems annoyed by the other two attractive yet bland participants in her love triangle, both also stuck playing ciphers.
Sheridan’s take on the material is solidly made but sorely lacking in subtlety. As integral as it might be to the source novel, the repeated use of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata only serves to show how unoriginal the whole venture feels. It’s also a desperate attempt to wring some emotion out of what should feel like a heartbreaking story yet it suffers in comparison to films such as The Magdalene Sisters and Philomena.
But where the film really falls apart is in the last stretch, where an unlikely, frustratingly silly narrative revelation arrives, one that was unpopular with literary critics at the time of the book’s release. It’s daytime soap-level stuff and even Redgrave, who convinces throughout, fails to sell the final few far-fetched scenes.
Sheridan has developed a number of bad habits during his time in the US, and Hollywood sentimentality is clearly the most egregious (the film ends with a song by Kelly Clarkson). The Secret Scripture is sadly not the return to form it could have been and will likely stay a secret to most of the cinema-going public.
