Capturing a year in the life of a rural, lakeside community in late 1970s Ireland, That They May Face The Rising Sun is a sensitive and beautifully realised adaptation of the last novel by John McGahern. Joe (Barry Ward) and Kate (Anna Bederke) have returned from London to live and work in a small, close-knit community in rural Ireland, close to where Joe grew up. He’s a writer, she’s an artist who retains part ownership of a London gallery. Now embedded in a remote lakeside setting, the drama of a year in their lives and those of their neighbours unfolds through the rituals of work, play and the passing seasons.
A delicate, meditative exploration of ritual, community bonds, and the question of how best to live, That They May Face The Rising Sun is a gorgeously evocative and reverently bucolic literary adaptation from director Pat Collins (Song of Granite).