This perfectly rendered naturalist feature, adapted from writer William Trevor’s short story The Ballroom of Romance, explores the deadening atmosphere of 1950s Ireland through the figure of the unmarried Bridie (Brenda Fricker).  “Spinster” Bridie goes to the country ballroom, where as a young woman she danced and dreamed of a happy marriage, to desperately try one last time to find a husband. Respectable men prove to be thin on the ground and loneliness threatens to drive Bridie into the arms of drunken, foolish Bowser Egan (John Kavanagh). Trevor supplied the script for this adaptation himself, with Pat O’Connor crafting it into a courageous look into the paralysed heart of rural Ireland.