Starring: Shirley MacLaine, Mischa Barton, Christopher Plummer, Pete Postlethwaite and Neve Campbell
Director: Richard Attenborough
Rated: MA
WITH director Richard Attenborough at 83, we are not expecting an avant garde film.
No, this is old-fashioned film-making which appeals to older audiences and those with a romantic vein.
It boasts a good cast, a chance to see Shirley MacLaine in her early 70s doing her acerbic thing and Christopher Plummer, nearer to 80, exerting his charm.
Actually, the plot is quite complicated. There are two time eras, the 1940s and the 1990s and there are two place settings, the Michigan and Belfast.
The film moves from place to place, time to time with plenty of flashbacks.
It is a bit like the cyclic indication of the title. We move around the ring and finally it is closed.
In the 1940s, three young men are great friends, enlist together after Pearl Harbour, train together and go on flying missions to Europe.
At the centre of this circle is Ethel Ann (Mischa Barton) who loves one of the three, promising to love him forever.
Caring for Ethel Ann, he asks one of his friends to look after her if anything should happen to him.
This leads to some complications after the war and its effect on the older Ethel Ann (Shirley MacLaine).
In the meantime in Belfast, people have to shelter from raids. The IRA is active and the British troops watchful.
Then the good-time Americans come.
In the 1990s, the young Belfast fireman from the 1940s (Pete Postlethwaite) continues to dig on the mountainside at the edge of the city, helped by an exuberant young man (Martin McCann) who finds Ethel Ann’s ring.
As might be imagined, this opens up all the memories, probes into the secrets, especially for the only surviving pilot friend (Christopher Plummer) and Ethel Ann’s daughter, Marie (Neve Campbell).
A visit to Belfast and an experience of terrorist bombs lead to some resolution of the events which have bedevilled the characters for almost 50 years.
Despite the time and place shifts, this is plain and classic storytelling.
Definitely not for those with Tarantino sensibilities, this provides entertainment and some emotions for those who like the old-style films.
