USA,
1994, 108 min
Shown in 1995
CREDITS
- dir
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Edward Burns
- prod
-
Edward Burns, Dick Fisher
- scr
-
Edward Burns
- cam
-
Dick Fisher
- editor
-
Dick Fisher
- cast
-
Jack Mulcahey, Edward Burns, Michael McGlone, Connie Britton, Maxine Bahns
-
COMMENTS
One of four Opening Night films. Edward Burns and Maxine Bahns in person.
At the beginning of The Brothers McMullen, the father of a Long Island Irish Catholic family has just died, and the mother—finally free from a loveless marriage—has run off to Ireland in pursuit of a long-lost love. The stage is then set for Edward Burns’s down-home story of three brothers who, for various reasons, end up living together in the family home. The oldest is a stable and happily married schoolteacher; the middle brother (played by Burns) is a writer in his late 20s who has a hard time making commitments; the youngest, a recent college grad, is the straightest of the bunch, yet he’s also just discovering how un-straight life often is—and it befuddles him. It’s a simple story, funny because it’s so very human. There’s a strong emotional honesty between the brothers as they deal with moral, spiritual, romantic and sexual dilemmas, helping each other solve problems. The film is ultimately about what the brothers are able to learn from each other—and from the women in their lives. A clever, charming and emotionally rich experience.
FACTOID #176
Hordes of screaming teenagers were fascinated with the Rolling Stones, but so were influential imagemakers Jean-Luc Godard and Robert Frank. The SFIFF has screened three different films with the Rolling Stones as the main subject: Godard’s Sympathy for the Devil (SFIFF 1972), Frank’s Cocksucker Blues (SFIFF 1998) and the IMAX documentary At the Max (SFIFF 1991).
