Closing the ring

This film is about an old man digging up fragments of planes from World War II, thereby uncovering some heartbreaking secrets.

"Closing The Ring" is probably about as unconventional as you can get, as it concentrates on the relationship among older people, characters with a thick Irish accent and setting against a backdrop of terrorist attacks. Maybe it is this unusual combination that makes the film interesting.

The film recounts past regrets, unfulfilled promises and entangled relationships. The complicated plot weaving the past and present is well presented. Characters are developed well, drawing me to their experiences, making me feel the way they do. However, this Teddy guy is seriously miscast. He is so wooden and passionless. Even Mischa Barton seems Oscar worthy compared to him.

"Closing The Ring" is an engaging romantic drama. It is worth a watch.

I saw this movie at the London Film Festival yesterday.It is an incredibly old fashioned piece of film-making that at times seems very contrived and manipulative,but it does contain genuine emotion and a story that keeps you watching from beginning to end.Some of the acting(especially from the 1941 period)is patchy,but in the 1991 period of the film,MacLaine is great,so is Postlewaite but the film is stolen by young Martin McCann as the naive Jimmy Reilly,who is responsible for piecing the lives together of the characters separated by time and oceans.After the showing,Lord Attenborough appeared for a short Q&A and gave us some insight into the making of the film and announced the film will receive it's premiere in Ireland and will be released nationwide on the 28th Dec.My guess is for anyone who has an elderly relative to catch up with over the Christmas period,and wants to take them out,then see this movie.They will love it and you might possibly get hooked.The audience yesterday obviously were.

a love story. or only a war story. in fact, both. not as two parts of a single story but as mixed sides. because its virtue is to be an old fashion story. comfortable in a specific way. seductive in each aspect. it is one of films who gives the flavor and the colors of a world. in delicate and touching manner. one of many stories about her and him, about the other, about the unexpected event and about the truth as a fragile building, after decades. and this does "Closing the Ring" more than a Hallmark film. but a sort o rediscover of personal memories about similar facts and meets and decisions.

Never make promises you can't fulfill, otherwise you'll find that nagging feeling coming back to haunt you, and it can be quite uncomfortable, unless of course it doesn't bother you as far as integrity and trustworthiness are concerned. Then again there's the living a lie, of not being true to yourself, which sometimes can be tricky when it deals with affairs of the heart, where ignorance may be bliss.

Closing the Ring throws its hat into the WWII era inspired romance stories, where boys turn into men, and have to leave their lady love behind at home while they ship off to the warfront. With events that unfold across two different continents, and unfolding between two different timelines with the necessary flash backs, flash forwards, and nicely edited transitions, the movie isn't that bad although the story might be at times clichéd.

Jack (Gregory Smith), Chuck (David Alpay) and Teddy (Stephen Amell) are three buddies who join the air force, and are training to be pilots, navigators and gunners, whatever it takes to bring them to the skies. Mischa Barton stars as young Ethel Ann who's the flower amongst the group, but only having romantic feelings for Teddy, whom she married in secret before the trio got shipped away to join the war.

That's the arc of the past, where we see how their relationship with one another hold up during mankind's darkest hour. The arc of the present has Shirley MacLaine and Christopher Plummer take up the senior roles of Ethel Ann and Jack respectively, and on the other side of the continent in Northern Ireland, we follow Michael Quinlan (Pete Postlethwaite) and Jimmy Reilly (Martin McCann), where the latter is a simple minded teen helping the former fireman dig around Black Mountain in search of something of value.

I guess by now you can piece together a little bit of what could possibly happen, and added to the fray is the IRA's struggle for independence in 1991. Characters interact by crossing continents, mysteries and confirmation of what happened during those faithful and pivotal moments in WWII get revealed and explained, and feelings slowly get revealed, demolishing some long held denial and unawareness. Although given what would transpire, you wonder if it's remotely possible to pine for someone for so long, or to lock away your heart so cruelly that you shut off affections even for your own child.

It's still an enjoyable movie, though not exactly a great one but it does get to its point quickly. You might find yourself being a step ahead of the characters and piece together all the information provided way in advance, but still, if you'd enjoyed movies like Atonement and Evening, then you wouldn't find this that bad at all. Oh, and the English subtitles did help in deciphering some thick Irish accent.

The story of love lost to death during the second world war will never be tiresome for anyone whose family was touched by the war. The question is, can writers and actors still make the story real? For those of us in the audience tonight at The Screening Room in Kingston, watching Closing the Ring, the answer was a very satisfying 'yes'. Young actors were able to create the unselfconscious optimism and sense of honour of their 1940s counterparts heading off to war; the older cast members knew exactly how to portray the knowledge, understanding, and forgiveness that the present-day characters had learnt from their wartime experience, and kept in with such punishing self-control. If you don't like this film, I suspect you're under thirty. I'd suggest you prepare to discover its truth, and its very fine acting, in your later age. And be thankful if you're not on the verge of great loss in your youth. But then our soldiers are fighting and dying overseas as I write; perhaps young Ethel Anns and Teddys are making promises to each other at this very moment. In that case, open yourself to the possibility that this story might be about to unfold in your own life, even as you reject its apparent unreality.