The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne

This ranks with Agnes Moorehead in The Magnificent Ambersons and Katherine Hepburn in Long Day's Journey Into Night as the single greatest performance recorded on film by a woman. Maggie Smith will rip your heart out!

This was a strong and moving movie. In fact, it even made me both a bit upset and a bit depressed - because Miss Hearne's fate in upper middle age, was my own big fear before I met my husband and had my children. Not until I had two children I felt reasonably safe. This was because like Miss Hearne I had no siblings, and where she had only an old aunt, who later died, I had my parents - but they were also old and I knew that half my life I would live without them...

Miss Hearne's sad and lonely life, waiting for Mr Right who she as a young girl pictured as "tall, dark, and handsome" (well - what girl hasn't..?), in time lowering her expectations more and more, and seeking comfort in religion as well as the bottle - is only too common also in real life.

The acting was excellent all around, as was the picture of the time, and the melancholy mood created by bleak photo and classical music both beautiful and sad.

I really recommend this movie, but with one exception: if you are yourself in the same situation as Miss Hearse - then maybe you should not watch it. Because it is the opposite of feel-good, and can make you only sadder.

As Judith Maggie Smith turns in the performance of a lifetime and one of the best and most complete portrayals by any actor on film. This is an astonishing film, full of bleak Irish heartbreak, yet with the promise of hope.

Smith is a no less than a revelation in the title role and one cannot help but route for this desperate character even when all looks hopeless. The screenplay had been fought over for years by actresses of every stripe, with, for a while, Jane Fonda, leading the pack of actresses trying to get Judith onto the screen. It's a good thing Maggie Smith won out.

The ensemble cast of actors led by Bob Hoskins is fully up to Smith's standard and the emotional wallops this movie packs are big ones indeed.

George Delarue's score is simply perfect underlying with the exact weight and gravity - and sweetness - of every situation.

When is this thing coming out on DVD? It's simply ridiculous it hasn't yet appeared.

Highest recommendation.

Only 21 reviews? The film may be a bit flawed on some levels, but is still a masterpiece. Because of her; La Smith. I don't think Maggie Smith has ever failed in a role. And Judith Hearne is one of her finest moments, as she didn't have to rely on an sophisticated, aristocratic charism. I love the Hearne character, even as I wanted to slap her sometimes.

Dame Maggie is at the top of her career right now, due to the Downton Abby craze and it's cinema version. I guess that if Maggie kicked Elizabeth II out of Buckingham palace and sat herself down in the royal chair, no one in England would protest....everybody, EVERYBODY loves the indestructible Dowager!

This movie is very touching and Maggie is truly royalty, a delightful woman, a unique actress, and her Judith won her numerous awards, but the film is mostly forgotten these days. And I will never forget that fire red 1950's spinster coat of hers....

Maggie Smith is enormously affecting as Irish piano teacher Judith Hearne, whose life is plagued by Catholic guilt; painful memories of her early life with a difficult, wealthy aunt; and the less-than-genteel situation in which she now finds herself. At the shabby boarding house where she lives, Hearne meets the brother of her landlady. As they become friendlier, she seizes on the chance that this man will save her from a dismal life as a poor spinster.

The uniformly fine cast includes Bob Hoskins and Prunella Scales. I cannot recommend this movie highly enough to anyone who enjoys character-driven stories.