The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne

The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne is a quiet drama about an ageing spinster, Judith Hearne, who moves into a boarding house in Dublin owned by the prim Mrs. Rice. Miss Hearne makes her living as a piano teacher and generally leads a quiet life. Behind the nice, respectable facade, however, beats a heart that has not yet given up hope of great romantic love. That hope is rekindled when Mrs. Rice's brother, James Madden, who has just returned home from America and now also lives at the boarding house, shows an interest in Judith Hearne. Only too late does Judith realise that James is only interested in her as a business partner, that is to say, in her money. She then turns to the bottle once again, as she apparently has done so many times before, but this time the downfall seems total.

The film is a depressing experience despite its faintly optimistic ending. Life is immeasurably dreary in the Dublin of the fifties, where narrow-mindedness and pettiness are the order of the day. Maggie Smith plays the lead in such a way that poor Judith Hearne's fate is not easily shaken off. The film's only flaw is that it is too undramatic. A couple more dramatic high points would raise its quality considerably.