Pauline Cadell

The film, based on the novel of the same title by Edna O'Brien, is a dark story about love and land set in County Clare in the West of Ireland.

Concerns an Irish woman, Cathy (Pauline Cadell), who dearly loves her Portuguese lawyer husband, Pedro (Rui Morisson); however, unbeknownst to her, he engages in one tryst after another. Cathy soon finds herself trying to help a young delinquent get off heroin, while the youth's desperate mother joins a weird religious cult. In other segments, an elderly man is nearly driven mad with grief at the loss of his granddaughter in a train station, while a down-and-out jeweler ushers the young girl to a hotel room.

Melissa Gilbert stars as Meredith. A sad and lonely writer returning to her home town in England for the first time since she was about 6 or 7 years old, after being adopted and raised in America. While there she decides to look for her mother's grave, and finds out her memories are not exactly what she thought they were, her mother is alive. She then sets out to find her mother and some answers and finds both. She also falls in love, of course, but has a problem with long term commitments...