Bobbie's Girl

While Bernadette Peters and Rachel Ward did a good job of playing a couple that is suddenly presented with a 10 your old child, while dealing with other crisis. The boy who plays Allan stole this movie, he was so adorable and convincing, he is going to be a great actor someday. Watch this movie if only to see his performance, you will not be disappointed.

First, I watched the film (last night) without realising that Roberta Langham was played by Rachel Ward; it's been years since I saw her in anything.

Anyway, I enjoyed this film immensely, ignoring - as other contributors have pointed out - the rather unlikely scenario of a largish Jewish community in a small RoI seaside town and the ability of a gay couple to live so openly there.

Thomas Sangster's performance was indeed years ahead of his age and had me sniffling occasionally. Yes, I agree with another contributor who suggested this film is best watched with someone you love.

A beautifully warm film, without resorting to schmaltz. See it.

The quality that makes this movie such a joy to watch are the relationships between the primary characters. The relationship between Bailey and Bobbie "feels" real. Both Ward and Peters convey the familiarity of long established relationships. A tacit acceptance of the good qualities and foibles that all couples deal with in each other.

I had never seen Sangster in any films before this. I was deeply impressed with the abilities of an actor so young to convey complex feelings without words. Dread and hope expressed side by side. His attempts to bond with his aunt and Bailey are artfully portrayed, with just enough success and frustration to feel genuine.

As the uncle, Jonathan Silverman provides a balanced portrayal of self effacing humor and sensitivity. In the character of Uncle David Allen is able to see that other ways of living that are completely alien to his very proper British up bringing.

A warm and hopeful film. It's characters, their relationships, and the personal growth that occurs in each of them make it a genuine joy to watch.

Okay - not a bad movie, but two major exceptions:

1. (Unfortunately) Lesbianism is still very underground in Ireland, and even more so in a suburban/rural town like Bray - so it's unlikely that that part of the story would have flown. And even more so the wedding at the end of the movie.

2. I grew up in the town this was filmed in, and went to school in Dublin. I met a total of one Jewish person over 21 years. There just aren't any! Ireland is 99% Catholic, although Bray is known to have a large population of Protestants, many from the North. But Jews? Sorry, no.

So, I came to the conclusion that the writer/producer Samuel Berstein (obviously Jewish, but obviously not lesbian!) just took his generic story and transplanted it to Bray. Don't get me wrong, it's nice to see another film set in Ireland, but a bit of reality needs to be tempered in these cases - maybe that was offset by the American/English characters, but even then the English Jewish population is pretty small, too (except in the movie business...) For the record, I am anti-racism and pro-equality (& reality)

My wife and I both enjoyed the movie. Nothing earth shaking, just a pleasant enough way to spend an hour and a half. Since all we know of Ireland is what we can remember from having motored around the southern end of it roughly 300 years ago we aren't troubled by a knowledge of the reality of that country either.

I really wish that movies that come to Canada could bear ratings that reflect the accepted standards of this country. After all, marriages between women are now legal here and there was nothing in this movie in the least lascivious, so why such a misleading label?

I suppose that my only concern about suggesting such a thing is that it might bring back the silly days of the government censors.