By the time I saw the Irish film The Eclipse, the buzz was deafening. It's going to be the biggest sale in Tribeca history! It'll put this festival on the map! It's the smartest ghost story you'll ever see! Somehow a tiny movie starring Ciaran Hinds was the talk of the town, and I was willing to get over my pathological fear of horror and ghost stories to sit in the very front row at a packed screening and check this one out.
I'm sure I was a victim of the hype, but while I found the film intelligent and moving and well-made, I never leapt out of my seat with joy. I can't say the same for leaping out of my seat with fear-- the ghost scares in The Eclipse are incredibly effective, and all the more because they're sprinkled within a story that's otherwise a quiet, adult story about love and loss.
The mix of ghostly scares and tender romance is what sets The Eclipse apart, for sure, but also makes it a tough experience-- at any minute you're prepared for a ghost to pop out of hte ground. For the amount of time I could watch without my fingers fearfully over my eyes, I was indeed mesmerized by Ciaran Hinds in the lead role as Michael Farr, a woodworking teacher and a widower who is left caring for both his two children and his father-in-law (Jim Norton), who is left idling in nursing home. Michael helps run an annual writing festival in his seaside hometown, and finds himself chauffeuring the British novelist Lena Morelle (Iben Hjejle), whose latest novel, The Eclipse, deals frankly with her own experiences seeing ghosts.
That's convenient, given that Michael has recently found himself haunted by the spectral figure of his father-in-law, who is not yet dead. And Lena is still coping with a ghost of sort from her own past, a brash and needy American novelist played brilliantly by Aidan Quinn, who is trying to get Lena back in bed when he's not focused on grooming his own hair. The occasional ghostly appearances don't fit particularly well into the blooming romance between Lena and Michael, and even when their conversation turns to his memories of his dead wife, you wonder why it's the father-in-law and not the wife who's haunting his conscience.
But with the ghosts set aside, the story works wonderfully on its own, as Michael gains confidence in his own writing dreams from his conversations with Lena, and she develops the confidence to ditch the caddish, married other man. The three main actors work marvelously together, particularly in the rare scenes in which all three are together-- yeah, talk about awkward. And Hinds keeps the ghostly stuff convincing, even when he has to be the guy found flailing in his wardrobe by his daughter, convinced there's a ghost there trying to drag him to hell.
Magnolia has picked up The Eclipse for release, and it'll be interesting to see what kind of audience the film can find-- classy adult moviegoers don't tend to be into ghosts, and horror-loving thrillseekers will be put off by the meditative pace of the central relationship. But the combination of styles is intriguing, if not entirely successful, and for director Conor McPherson's first venture in a feature-length drama, a promising start in a new direction.
