Imdb Ranking 6.0
A New York playwright, Charlie (Martin Sheen) returns to Ireland to bury his father (Barnard Hughes). While at the house he encounters the spirit of his father, sitting there with a pipe in his hand.
Charlie is soon engaged in full conversations with his Da, but he tells him that he is dead. He wants him to get out of his head. Then he sees his mother, who died years before, wandering around the house screaming. Then he sees visions of his younger self and begins having conversations with him too. Drumm (William Hickey) visits the house (in the past) and Da tells him he is cheering for the Nazis over the English.
Charlie was adapted and as a young man listens to his mother tells Drumm how kucky he is. Charlie says to his father: "You worked for 54 years, 9 hours a day, in a garden so steep a horse couldn't climb it. And when they let you go, with a pension of 10 shillings a week, you did handsprings of joy because it came from 'The Quality'. You spent your life sitting on brambles, and wouldn't move in case someone took your seat." Young Charlie is then offered a job in Drumm's office.
Charlie had asked Da to come to New York when his ma dies, but Da decided to stay in Ireland and fend for himself. When he was a boy we see his dog giving the neighbor a hard time and Da going off to drown him, but Charlie jumps in and saves him.
In an interesting scene we see Charlie arguing with the young Charlie over what he is, and what he is to become. At twenty-six Charlie is still working in Drumm's office, but he finally has had enough and heads off to make his way as a playwright.
Charlie and Da talked about the places that Charlie "put" Da after his mother had died.
In one scene a young Charlie watches as his Ma and Da argue about how Ma preferred "Ernie" over Da, but her father made her marry him. Then we see Da in the garden he worked in. The lady of the house tells him that she has a buyer for the house. Da says it is time he retired anyways. He was sixty eight and has worked there for fifty four years.
Da was a simple man, but he was a good man and he was content. A good movie that shows you can go home again. Perhaps even more to the point the movie shows you never really can leave home - it will always be with you. Bittersweet memories explored great dialogue and some nice scenes of 1950's Ireland make for a very good movie.
