The Wind That Shakes The Barley (15)

This came so close to not being finished, but when it went on to win the coveted Palme d’or at Cannes (2006) it was glittered at by the glitterati, but not by the tabloid English press and Tele-graph.

They demonised it before it was ever screened!

“Only 42 of the 659 cinema screens in Britain are set to show it (one of that 42 was/is The Rex) yet 300 French cinemas are queueing for it…” (Standard 22nd June 2006).

With characteristic insight, honesty and intelligence, Loach/Laverty creates a tense moving, com-passionate and poignant story. It examines the personal cost of conflict in Ireland in the early 1920s.

Reluctant at first, later driven by all around him, Damien (Cillian Murphy) follows his brother Teddy (Padraic Delaney) into violent conflict. When an unstable treaty is finally agreed, it is already too late. Civil war pits families, who fought side by side, against each another. The period detail is extraordinary, as are the performances in this “controversial slice of half-forgotten history”.

Brutal and heart searching, not a beat is skipped.

It is a beautifully measured story of loyalty, conflict and above all: Family. Heart lifting/breaking.

Don’t miss Cillian Murphy at his best – long before Oppenheimer.