Kingfisher
 a Journal of Northwest Art and Literature  

 Spring 2003, Volume Two, Number Two
 Copyright 2002-3 Kingfisher Press

page three

NORA, 2000

If you liked the book (Brenda Maddox's Nora), you might not like the movie, but I did. Both are about James Joyce's wife, Nora Barnacle, with whom they had two children, a boy and a girl, and finally married. She was the love of his life and the prototype for Molly Bloom, his lusty heroine in his reworking of the Homer legend, Ulysses.

He did her good, as the Beatles might have said, and did.

Ewan McGregor

Susan Lynch played Molly to Ewan McGregor's Jim. And one might question whether she is physically the type, she plays the part well and with a nice ambiguity about female sexuality--which is in keeping with the part and Joyce's perception of his mistress and wife. (Nice when they come in the same luxurious package.)

Is the man usually the prude? I suspect so. And is shocked when the woman in his life turns out to be the sexual instigator.

The movie is beautifully filmed, a period piece lovingly recreated in the authenticated manner of Merchant and Ivory.

Recommended: a good evening's entertainment, and you my learn something in the process. A few biographic liberties are taken with the story, but they do not weaken it and, as did the book, fill in certain gaps. Others--such as Jim and Nora's masturbation and letters to promote this absentee practice--are pretty well documented in the literature, and may in some ways explain the graphic images in Molly Bloom's famous soliloquy.

Glenn Close, the chain-smoking doctor

Five interwoven stories comprise this excellent film, starring Glenn Close in the initial episode as Dr. Elaine Keener, an abortionist who is seeing a psychiatrist. She lives with her invalided mother. Holly Hunter is Rebecca, an executive who has been having an affair with Robert, played by Gregory Hines. Cameron Diaz is a blind woman. (Most actors are cast against type, incidentally, which gives them a good work out with some meaty parts.) Calista Flockhart is a Lesbian whose partner is dying of cancer (or AIDS). She also is a fortune teller, who tells Glenn she is in for hard times. Cathy Baker is a lonely widow with teenaged son, who falls for--ready for this?--a dwarf. Amy Brenneman is Cameron Diaz's sister and a detective investigating a murder. Get it? Take my word for it, it all comes together, well, sort of. The women are lonely and neurotic. The men are selfish cads. If this sounds like the Real World, you're in the right place.

Holly Hunter is having an abortion


Calista Fockhart regards her dying partner

Recommended. You won't be bored trying to figure it out. If you can without help. But the characters are rich and important, the film well made and expertly acted.

TITUS