KnotStronger This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Taha Avalos The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Paynbob It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Freeman This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Susanne Nicole Cavendish I haven't the slightest idea, who readinglips from San Diego, CA, is, or if he is just some computer software turned loose on by a set of algorithms with emphasis on criticism. There are any number of references to historical perspective, in the movie and the storm was part of the history of Ireland, even if the shooting time frame was not accommodated with the convenience of a storm. Would readinglips have settled for a short refresher course on how much Ireland hated British occupation by showing Major Doryan's arrival as some symbol of a recipe to cure the winged ideas about sexuality which Rose made reference to? The publican father, being an informer required some need to inform beyond the pasty and less than convincing overtures of the Tim O'Leary character, well-played by Barry Foster, whose crimes were hidden and disguised from being informed upon? Readinglips is doing the same hatchet job people did on Dr Zhivago, without knowing Russian history and giving faint praise to Lean's prominence, without leaving anything in their writings to justify, his greatness? Readinglips is full of it and if that is in reference to his lips moving as he reads, he, probably never got beyond reading the introductory material in the film, missing the film altogether? I don't waste much time on people like him/her and IMDb should be ashamed to let his review, as to the movie, stand for how they feel about it! I give his rating one that could only be measured with depth calipers!

TheLittleSongbird David Lean is not quite at his best here like he was with Lawrence of Arabia, Bridge on the River Kwai, Great Expectations, Oliver Twist and Brief Encounter, but Ryan's Daughter is a very good (though flawed film). It is better than most directors' later films and did not deserve the critical roasting it got.There were a couple of things that weren't quite right with Ryan's Daughter. Christopher Jones, despite looking the part, is dreadfully stiff and wooden in his role, showing little involvement or range, by far the (only) weak link in the cast. And while the score from Maurice Jarre has its moments like the main theme, the tavern scene and the beach hallucination and is not bad music at all on its own, it is for me the weakest of his collaborations with Lean and doesn't fit within the film, sounding too inappropriately jaunty often (especially Michael's theme) in a film that would have benefited better with a lusher, more Celtic touch.However, Ryan's Daughter is a beautiful-looking film, with grand settings, rich use of colours and Freddie Young's sweeping Oscar-winning cinematography (especially in the storm scene). It's superbly directed as ever by Lean, taking full advantage of the epic scope of the visuals and story and while deliberate he does succeed in making the story compelling and the characters interesting enough. The script from Robert Bolt is intelligent, witty and very thoughtful and never becomes over-the-top or slack, complete with a good balance of the personal, the historical and the political.With the story, it's deliberate in pace but never interminably so and is often very moving (even if a few parts in the first half could have done with more meat), complete with the unforgettable storm scene. It is also one of Lean's more cohesive later stories, being less sprawling than Doctor Zhivago and less drifting than A Passage to India (which are also both fine films). The historical backdrop is very effective, more so I feel than Doctor Zhivago's, and the characters are interesting and intimate.Apart from Jones, the performances are of a very high standard. Robert Mitchum was courageous casting and is a revelation in a different and gentler role to the tough guy roles he took on, while Sarah Miles is moving as one of the characters that evolves the most throughout the course of the story. Whether John Mills deserved his Oscar is up to debate, but what matters more to me was whether his performance is good and, while it is understandably one of the film's most divisive components, the almost unrecognisable Mills is very amusing and affecting as the village idiot. Leo McKern more than excellently portrays a hypocritical, cowardly and domineering father figure and Trevor Howard does a wonderful job providing the moral compass of the story. Barry Foster shows off briefly but is suitably intense and grittily dignified, likewise Gerald Sim's appearance is very brief but is very memorable.Overall, a flawed but very good and undervalued (back then and now) film from David Lean. It may not be quite a masterpiece, but it is not even close to a disaster. 8/10 Bethany Cox

blanche-2 As often happens with great talent, the public's expectations often bring the artist down with a crash. We saw it with as disparate talents as Tennessee Williams, David O. Selznick, and here we see it with David Lean.Lean was one of the great filmmakers of the 20th century, capable of doing intimate films like Brief Encounter and huge epics like Lawrence of Arabia. And therein lies the problem. How could the director of Dr. Zhivago and Lawrence of Arabia give the public anything less than a masterpiece? Well, even the greats are entitled to take on a challenge, and not everything they do has to be magnificent. Artists should be allowed to grow and expand.In doing Ryan's Daughter, Lean faced some challenges that were difficult to overcome.First, let's look at the positives. On the big screen, this must have been overwhelmingly beautiful to watch. The landscapes, the beach, the town, the incredible storm -- a feast for the eyes.Then there are sublime performances by Robert Mitchum and Sarah Miles as a schoolteacher, Charles, and his wife, Rosy. He's a simple man and not very exciting; she's a young woman with no worldly experience whose life is turned upside down when she falls in love with a British soldier (Christopher Jones) with PTSD. Leo McCrary plays her father, a gruff but weak man, and he's excellent even if he did hate making this movie. He wasn't alone. Robert Mitchum had messages to Lean delivered by Sarah Miles, and Sarah Miles was furious having to act opposite Christopher Jones.To continue with the cast, most of them are excellent, including Trevor Howard as the local priest and John Mills as the Village Idiot. The latter is the kind of role that wins Oscars, and this one followed the formula, winning one for Mills.In making this film, Lean was faced with the difficulty of the weather, which at times hung up the filming for as long as four weeks. No matter how good you are, crossing paths with Mother Nature somehow never works. The best part of this film is the storm scene, terrifying in its scope. How Lean filmed it at all is a miracle.His other problem was Christopher Jones, a total disaster. Lean cast him on the basis of seeing him in another film, but at the time, he didn't realize the actor had been dubbed. He soon learned that not only could Jones not act, but he refused to do the kind of love scenes that Lean had been eager to shoot since his Brief Encounter days, when the code was in place.Jones would not participate in the love scenes with Miles, which angered her. What angered her further no doubt was the fact that Jones apparently said he wasn't attracted to her. I guess he thought he was attending a college mixer and not there to do a job. Did he think she was attracted to him, and that's why she was willing to do the scenes? They were critical to her character, showing her in a passionate love affair, her awakening as a full woman.Lean wound up cheating the love scenes and hiring Julian Holloway to dub Jones, after taking most of his lines away from him. Jones should have been embarrassed, but he probably wasn't. I interviewed him some years ago. He was given a lot of opportunities. He blew them.Set during the Easter Rising of 1916, Ryan's Daughter is a beautiful movie, if overlong and with too sprightly music given the plot. The ending is ambiguous, but I think we can conclude what will happen.This is a story of betrayal, adultery, cruelty, passion, and love. It's not Lean's greatest. But any Lean film is worth seeing and a lot better than probably 80% of the films out there.

Rueiro I first saw it, back in the Nineties, in Spanish language on a TV screening with so many commercial breaks that this three-hour-and-a- quarter long movie went on for five hours. But the long night was worth, because I totally loved the film. It is a big shame that this beautiful film was so viciously massacred by the critics on its day when it is full of poetry and it contains some the most beautiful images ever committed to film. I can watch it almost without realising its great length and never find it boring for a minute, because there are so many beautiful details to look at in the carefully composed shots, the unique wild beauty of Ireland and the fantastic art direction. Now, the PC brigade will probably blacklist me for saying this: John Mills won the Oscar, we all know, but I find his character tiring and irritating to the point that at the scene where he plays with the explosives I still wish he will blow himself up. The always laconic and tough Robert Mitchum delivers a very solid performance as the gentle schoolmaster. The critics dismissed him as a total miscast,just like they had done with Burt Lancaster in "The Leopard" simply because they couldn't take in the idea of a cowboy playing a European aristocrat. Mitchum's character is sensitive and self-composed, a man of dignity and fine manners. He takes his pupils out to show them the natural environment in which they live and explain to them how things work. After discovering Rosie's infidelity, he still wants to be with her because he loves her and wants to give her a second chance. Even as if Catholics they could never divorce, there was always the choice for him to leave her. But he doesn't do that. That was another reason why the critics dismissed his character as ridiculous, saying that any normal husband would have gone away and leave the slut to rot.Trevor Howard is my second favourite actor in the film. One always expects a Catholic priest to be a sort of Torquemada, but this man is much more open-minded and tolerant than any of the numbers in his flock. He sees Rosie's infidelity not as a sin but as a moment of weakness that she can get over with if she pulls herself together. Rather than vilifying and excommunicating her for adultery, he tries to help her. He condemns the villagers' savage intolerance instead and blesses the two spouses as they go away to start a new life elsewhere. The usually rough and unsympathetic Howard gives here one of his best performances ever, and looks totally credible in the role. Miles's character loves her husband but then she discovers there is something missing in their marriage. The only time they make love he is too gentle and almost shy and finishes quickly, to her disappointment. Also, she finds his hobbies very dull and she feels he is keener on them rather on spending time with her. So she is frustrated, no matter how nice and gentle he is to her. Then a much younger and handsomer man comes along and her lust is suddenly unleashed. Many people may think that for being a Catholic she ought to be morally stronger and more virtuous, but precisely because of the moral repression she has always suffered in that tight-close redneck community, she has reached the point when her sexual urges get out of control. Much mockery rose on its day upon Christopher Miles's wooden acting and the fact that he had to be dubbed. But in my opinion he is not as bad in the role as everyone back then said he is. The character behaves like an automaton and looks sick because he is just coming out of a mental breakdown from shell-shock after the horrors he went through in the trenches. It is something that happened to many soldiers who survived World War One.They returned home as broken men for life, suffering from constant nightmares and phobias. So the way Jones acts is just adequate to the circumstances of the character. And the actor cannot be blamed for the dullness he displays. To his credit, I think he did a decently good job within his limited acting skills.Fortunately this magnificent film has been is now enjoying a new breath of life. Those of us who love it are lucky enough to enjoy it on DVD even if the small screen can't fully capture the sheer grandiosity of Freddie Young's spectacular cinematography. But at least we have it, and that is the most important thing.