John Maguire on Film: That They May Face The Rising Sun is a gorgeous, contemplative delight

Carved with exquisite precision from the simplest, most sensitive materials, Pat Collins directs a superb adaptation of John McGahern’s last novel, That They May Face The Rising Sun, as a meditation on nature, time and community set against the dramatic backdrop of the author’s native Leitrim.

Quietly, insistently, in a steady accretion of small moments of peace and contentment, the film reminds us to live as best we can, while we can. Winner of Best Film at the recent Irish Film and Television Awards, this gorgeously wrought drama will appeal to the audiences that came out for The Quiet Girl, with which it shares the same deep roots.