Rooney Mara may not have any new premieres this year, but a pair of films from last year’s TIFF will finally be hitting U.S. theaters. Just a week after Una arrives, The Secret Scripture, directed by Jim Sheridan (My Left Foot, In the Name of the Father), will get a release. The story follows Vanessa Redgrave as an older version of Mara’s character, reflecting on her traumatic life in Ireland through writing a diary alongside a cast including Jack Reynor, Theo James, Aidan Turner, and Eric Bana.
We said in our review, “The result falls flat and all too conventional for the talent involved. The problem lies more in Sheridan’s direction than in Mara’s acting, which is to say that she does deliver another good performance here, but everything else does her talent a major disservice. Redgrave is also a stand-out, but the film feels like an Irish soap opera filled with moments that forcefully demand the audience to cry, get mad, and get riled up, and as a result, it perpetrates one of the biggest sins you can make when creating a feature film: a lack of subtlety. The end result is an experience that feels all too tidy and gift-wrapped.”
Check out the trailer below.
Based on Sebastian Barry’s novel of the same name and also starring Vanessa Redgrave and Eric Bana, The Secret Scripture follows a 100-year-old Irish woman, Rose McNulty (Redgrave), who keeps a detailed diary of her life during her stay at a mental hospital. Mara plays a younger version of Rose navigating personal woes — she’s suspected of murdering her own child, of mysterious origin — during a time of political and social upheaval.
The Secret Scripture opens on October 13.