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One would think the only movie going by the name The Eclipse would be from the Twilight series but there is another. The movie that will be reviewed in this post is not associated with vampires but ghosts play a central role, sometimes very scary. The movie The Eclipse was shot in Ireland, the second movie in months that I am seeing out of that country.

Scene from The Eclipse

Just like Ondine, the scenes in the movie are romantic, very beautiful and country – lonely. Its the complete of a Sex and the City film. The film opens up with Michael Farr by Ciaran Hinds who is a widower raising two children ages 10 and 14. He struggles like most fathers to balance both work and home on his own. A down-low writer on the side he is a regular attendee of literary festivals in his town. With the highly anticipated annual literary festival he volunteers to chauffeur the writers for the festival.

L-R (Aidan Quinn and Iben Hjejle)

Michael Farr (Ciaran Hinds) is brilliant in the film. He meets Lena (Iben Hjejle) who is promoting her book at the festival. The Eclipse is masterly written and directed by Conor McPherson whose works includes the supernatural. It is interesting to watch how Michael Farr and Lena’s characters develop as they try to keep their platonic friendship from progressing any further. Their friendship is affected by an alcoholic Nicholas Holden (Aidan Quinn) who appears at the literary festival as a bestselling author. The movie has some scary scenes but nothing you can’t handle.

The best actor in the film is Aidann Quinn who plays an alcoholic best selling author. He commands the scenes he’s in naturally and although you dislike his role, one cannot but admire his acting skills. Truly amazing to watch. Michael Farr delivers a noteworthy performance as well as he struggles with guilt and grief from two tragic deaths in his life. The cinematography is very good and the scary scenes are done well. I tried my best to anticipate them but they caught me off guard. The movie is more drama than horror. This is one of the first movies I am watching without an epic ending. The movie is beautiful from beginning to end, an epic ending would have spoiled it. Beautiful writing though for an emotional story.

The Eclipse movie won three awards at the 2010 staging of the Irish Film and Television Awards:

1. Best Actor in a supporting role in a film – Aidan Quinn

2. Best Film

3. Best Script for film – Conor McPherson

Rating three out of five.

The Eclipse Official Trailer