Irish Film Institute -International Film Directory – Film Listing

Nora

    • Director

      Pat Murphy

    • Credits

      Producers: Bradley Adams, Damon Bryant, Tracey Seaward. Writers: Brends Maddox, Pat Murphy, Gerard Stembridge

    • Principal Cast

      Susan Lynch, Ewan McGregor, Peter McDonald

  • Category

    Feature
    F-Rated Female-led
    Literature

Continuing her work of investigating received history from a feminist perspective, director Pat Murphy here peels apart the mythologies surrounding famed writer James Joyce (Ewan McGregor) and gives a voice to his wife Nora Barnacle (Susan Lynch). Committed to this from the beginning, the film opens with Nora’s ill-fated love affair with Michael Bodkin (Andrew Scott) – an experience that would be later incorporated into Joyce’s famed short story ‘The Dead’. From here the portrayal of Nora is as Joyce’s intellectual equal, whose own wit and sexuality makes her more than a match for Joyce. All this unfolds against the backdrop of an expertly-realised costume drama, with the setting of Trieste in the 1900s minutely constructed. Wholly committed to recovering Nora from the margins of literary history, Nora is a fine re-examination of the life of a literary icon.

Awards:
Best Actress Award (Lynch) at the Irish Film and Television Awards 2000.

102 minutes, Ireland/UK/Italy/Germany, 2000, Colour

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