The Field

A strong whiff of Irish heartbreak. The director, Jim Sheridan, reaches for tragedy on a grand scale, and the melodrama climbs to improbable heights. This hurts the film’s sense of balance, but the story is buoyed by an unshakable feeling of earthiness, of plain, unadorned truth. Richard Harris is at his intense best playing a belligerent farmhand whose beloved field is sold to an enterprising Yank. With his shock of white hair, Harris looks like a hero from the pages of the Old Testament. John Hurt is equally fine as his lapdog friend. His craggy face and blackened teeth have rarely been used as resourcefully. The film was shot, beautifully, in Sheridan’s native Ireland, and there’s a strong sense of landscape to go with the bluster. Not every scene in this film works, but the high points soar off the charts.