Project Detail

Nora

Synopsis

In a time when women were expected to conform, Nora, a spirited young woman who has been abused all her life, has her world changed when she meets raffish young writer James Joyce and the pair succumb to a mutual desire.

Persuading him to start a future together away from Dublin, the couple set up home in Trieste, where their passionate and tempestuous life together begins. Joyce is tormented by a fear his work will never be published, but Nora's simplicity and humour anchor his instability and the couple's relationship is bonded by a direct, deep sexual love.

Joyce's complex, torturous nature leads him to irrationally distrust Nora and his attraction to the theme of betrayal motivates him in his work. Nora, faithful and devout, is the one who is being betrayed - in Joyce's manipulation of her as a fuel for his writing.

Ultimately their love is so strong, so all-consuming, that through the subsequent years of turbulence, of Joyce's obsessive behaviour and Nora's courageous and desperate struggle to save their relationship, from Trieste back to Dublin, their devotion conquers all.

Details

Year: 2000
Type of project: Features
Running time: 106 mins
Format: 35mm Kodak
Director: Pat Murphy
Producer: Guy Collins
Editor: Pia Di Ciaula
Screenwriter: Pat Murphy, Gerard Stembridge
Director of Photography: Jean Francois Robin
Sound: Recordist – Peter Lindsay
Composer: Composer – Stanislas Syrewicz
Principal cast: Ewan McGregor, Susan Lynch, Peter McDonald

Genre

Northern Irish Drama

Production Status

Complete

Production Company

Natural Nylon Entertainment 36 Marshall Street London W1V 1LL Tel: 020 7287 5110 Fax: 020 7287 3770

Sales Company

IAC Films 23 Ransome's Dock 35-37 Parkgate Road London SW11 4NP Tel: 020 7801 9080 Fax: 020 7801 9081 claudette@iacholdings.co.uk

Page updates

This page was last updated on 12th May 2025. Please let us know if we need to make any amendments or request edit access by clicking below.

Suggest amendments

Kevin and Cassandra are a married couple who have lost their only daughter Hannah in a freak car accident. They both raised her differently. Kevin had been a traditional parent, Cassandra a permissive one. While Hannah had decided to exhibit her body and mind online, she cut adrift from her father and gravitates towards her mother. Her death drove a wedge between them. Their lounge becomes a battlefield where incendiary words and spiteful things are said. Their marriage is one where opposites no longer attract. Kevin is filled with loathing for his in-laws, his daughter’s boyfriend, himself. Cassandra wears her daughter’s favorite colours with pride and exhibits her painting on the walls. Kevin finds he is powerless in his home and Cassandra mocks the fact that it was her father who bought it. And when he finally leaves it, he leaves Cassandra forever.

Black Drama