| Cast: |
Eamonn Owens, Alan Boyle, Andrew Fullerton, Stephen Rea, Aisling O'Sullivan, Fiona Shaw, Seán McGinley, Brendan Gleeson, Sinéad O'Connor
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| Synopsis: |
The story is set in the fictional town of Carn, apparently not far from Bundoran, but at the same time close to Dublin, in a time span between the end of 1961 to the end of 1962, during the atomic war threat.
Francie Brady and Joe Purcell are best friends. Francie hangs out with Joe to live in a life of comic-strips fantasy and to escape the reality where his father drinks too much and is violent to him and his mother, and her mother is depressed and thinks about suicide.
Francie is also in contrast with Mrs Nugent and her son Philip. They are blow-ins in Carn.
At Christmas the Francie's family celebrates at home, but when the guests leave, his father turns violent to his mother. Francie runs away from home and reaches Dublin where he buys his mother a present, but when he goes back home some days later he finds out that his mother committed suicide.
Francie thinks that Philip is the source of his misfortune, so he draws him into a trap and beats him up, Joe arrives in time to save Philip and asks him not to say a word at home. Philips tells his mother what happened, Philip's uncles come and beat Francie up so hard to think he's dead. Francie seeks revenge, so when the Nugents are away he breaks in the house and vandalize it. The police gets him and takes him into a Catholic boarding school. While there, Francie learns that Joe befriended Philip, so he decides to become an altar boy. His father visits him and tells him he went to Bundoran where he had spent his honeymoon with his mother, trying to relive those days. On a day Francie sees the Virgin and she tells him to be worried about Joe and his friendship with Philip. One of the priests at the school sexually harasses Francie, so father Bubbles, the principal, sends Francie home in return for his silence.
Back in Carn Francie finds a job as the butcher boy and hangs out with Joe again. Philip's uncles are back to avenge the vandalism in the Nugents' house, but while Francie defeats them, Joe disowns him.
Back at home Francie's father has drunk himself to death, but Francie seems not to realise. The town doctor becomes suspicious, calls the police and they take Francie to a psychiatric hospital. During the treatments Francie dreams of nuclear destruction and a world of aliens and pigs.
Francie escapes from the hospital and finds out that Joe has been sent to a Catholic boarding school in Bundoran along with Philip. In despair he has a vision of Our Lady who inspires him a trip to Bundoran. He finds the hotel where his parents spent their honeymoon and finds out that his father was violent to his mother during those days too. So he goes the boarding school to talk to Joe, but Joe disowns him again.
This is too much for him, he goes back to Carn during the religious procession that the town is holding to get protection from Our Lady against the nuclear threat. Francie goes to the slaughterhouse where he works, gets hold of the bolt gun and other butcher tools, breaks in the Nugents' house, kills Mrs Nugent, cuts her in pieces, carries the remains away and bury them under the slaughterhouse waste. Town people discovers the murder, the police arrests Francie, but he manages to escape from the prison, goes home and sets it to fire. He is rescued, ends up in a hospital to treat his burns and then he's held in a psychiatric hospital for the next 40 years. On the day of his release, Francie, now a grown up man, sees Our Lady again. She tells him to stay away from troubles and that the world is full of beautiful things.
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