Quality tearjerker set in 1950s Dublin about a spinster in middle age (Maggie Smith) who devoted her youth to the care of a curmudgeonly aunt (Wendy Hillier)... Now she finds herself chronically alone and unloved, which she palliates with whiskey while drifting from one cold, impersonal guest house to another...
Until she loses her faith and identifies the Catholic Church as the main driver of her inconspicuous tragedy. This adaptation of Brian Moore's novel is foremost a medium for Smith's heartbreaking performance as the solitary woman who spends a lifetime putting her faith in god but finds she got so little in return.
Surely Dame Maggie would have been a global star but for the collapse of the UK film industry in her peak years. Bob Hoskins is well cast in a support role as an Irish-American suitor who assumes the rueful introvert has some money set aside he might exploit... Plus there's Chopin and a sorrowful string score...
Though this isn't heritage cinema; there's a touch of grotesque realism in the candid photography and the wilful cruelty inflicted on the lonely heart. This is the final feature of Jack Clayton who- in the UK at least- only directed classics and channelled so many all time great performances by legendary female actors.