In the Name of the Father
1993 · Directed by Jim Sheridan
Original language: English
- drama
The story
A small-time Belfast thief, Gerry Conlon, is wrongly convicted of an IRA bombing in London, along with his father and friends, and spends 15 years in prison fighting to prove his innocence.
What it’s like
Grey, rain-streaked Belfast streets and dim, sepia-toned interiors give way to the cold, institutional blues and greens of English prison corridors, shot with a handheld, close-in intimacy that keeps the camera at the shoulder of its characters. Sheridan's images are weighty and tactile: sweat, damp wool, cigarette smoke hanging in courtroom light, the hard fluorescence of cells and visiting rooms. Pete Postlethwaite's and Daniel Day-Lewis's faces carry much of the film's weight, and Gerry Maguire Trevor Jones's score swells with sombre strings and a mournful, Irish-inflected melody that gathers force without ever overwhelming the scenes. The pacing is steady and heavy, built on long stretches of confinement and argument, and the emotional register is raw and angry, with a slow, hard-won warmth in the bond between a son and his father. Violence is present and it lands hard: brief but brutal beatings and police brutality, some sharp moments of cruelty, and a sustained atmosphere of dread around interrogation and sectarian hatred, though there is no graphic gore. It suits a serious weekend evening rather than a light night in, and is for viewers who want a grounded, politically charged true-story drama about injustice and family loyalty.
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