‘Four Letters Of Love’ review: Irish eyes a’romancing in heartfelt adaptation

Dir: Polly Steele. Ireland/UK. 2024. 110 mins

Love certainly moves in mysterious ways in Four Letters Of Love, a handsome, heartfelt adaptation of the Niall Williams novel. Gorgeous, sun-dappled Irish locations provide the backdrop to a sweeping narrative propelled by destiny, cosmic intervention and the odd miracle. A generation-spanning ensemble cast led by Pierce Brosnan and Helena Bonham Carter should enhance the appeal of a film squarely aimed at hopeless romantics. Cynics will look away. Vertigo have acquired UK and Ireland rights with a theatrical release currently scheduled for June, following its UK premiere at Dublin.

The seasoned cast brings sincerity to even the most implausible of twists

Williams’s debut novel was published in 1997 and became a global bestseller. He has aso written the screenplay, which may explain a slightly starchy, literary feel in the extensive use of voice-over narration and characters who turn to poetry as a means to express their unspoken inner lives.

Director Polly Steele (2024’s The Mountain With Me) begins her adaptation with the older Nicholas (Fionn O’Shea, a 2017 Screen Star Of Tomorrow) reflecting back on how he found “the meaning of my life”. In 1971, his staid civil servant father William (Brosnan) sees a square of light shining on a blotting paper pad. He is convinced it is a sign from God that he should become a painter. He abandons everything, including his then teenage son, and heads to the glorious west coast of Ireland to pursue his new calling. Four Letters was filmed in Donegal and Antrim, and cinematographer Damien Elliott certainly makes the locations pop. The skies and seas are as blue as blue can be, the beaches are golden and the sun never seems to dim, lending the film a slight fairytale quality.

Steele constantly cuts between the two elements of a story that must eventually connect. On an Irish island, Issy (Ann Skelly) is spending the “last day of her childhood” before sailing to a convent school on the mainland. Her mother Margaret (Helena Bonham Carter) and schoolmaster father Muirish (Gabriel Byrne) steal themselves for her sad departure. A tragic incident involving Issy’s brother Sean (Donal Finn) only adds to the foreboding.

The bulk of Four Letters follows the separate lives of Issy and Nicholas. With mischief-filled eyes framed by cascades of red curls, Ann Skelly is a mixture of Maureen O’Hara and Saoirse Ronan portraying an Issy hungry for life and love. She is soon expelled from school and propelled into the arms of handsome charmer Peadar (Ferdia Walsh Peelo, who also contributes the song ’Saraphina’ to the soundtrack.) Nicholas, meanwhile, is a more diffident, buttoned-down figure, stoical through the losses and griefs that he endures.

Four Letters is a tale of signs and omens, destiny and divine intervention, cosmic connections and miracle cures in which love conquers every obstacle placed in its path. It has elements of Edna O’Brien’s early writing, and these star-crossed lovers might have appealed to Powell and Pressburger back in the day. Steele’s approach owes more to the world of Nicholas Sparks, but she works hard to make it easy to swallow. The production design paints a world of cosy blue-walled cottages, warming pubs, roaring fires and suffocating work spaces. The seasoned cast brings sincerity to even the most implausible of twists. Bonham Carter and Byrne create an affectionate portrait of a couple comfortable in the longevity of their union. Skelly makes a spirited Issy and  O’Shea an earnest, anguished Nicholas.

The polished production is rounded off by a title song that is co-written and co-performed by Johnny Flynn.