Blue Road: The Edna O'Brien Story

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Blue Road: The Edna O'Brien Story

2024

1h 38m

Documentary

Biography

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11 Reviews

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In 1960, a young Irish woman named Edna O’Brien wrote a sexually frank debut novel, The Country Girls. She became a literary sensation, writing for The New Yorker, delivering provocative interviews, and authoring screenplays. Her success enraged her writer husband and made her a pariah in her native Ireland, where her books were banned and burned. She would make her home in London, where she conducted numerous love affairs, hosted star-studded parties, and made and lost a fortune. In July 2024, Edna passed away and this film provides a final testimony from her, aged 93, as she reflects upon her extraordinary life for filmmaker Sinéad O'Shea's camera. Granting the director access to her personal journals, read aloud in the film by the Oscar-nominated Irish actress Jessie Buckley, and with additional perspectives offered from Gabriel Byrne, Walter Mosley and an array of renowned writers, Edna does not shy from any subject.

Peter Bradshaw

Guardian

The film speaks to Walter Mosley, Anne Enright and Andrew O’Hagan who talk insightfully about her work, and perhaps most touchingly of all with her sons Carlo and Sasha Gébler. It’s a thoroughly enjoyable and engaging study.

Rated: 4/5

Jan 31, 2025

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David Rooney

The Hollywood Reporter

The melancholy undercurrent in O’Shea’s film comes not so much from O’Brien, who is devoid of self-pity, as from the evidence that her stature among the greats of Irish literature was fully acknowledged at home only toward the end of her life.

Nov 15, 2024

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Fionnuala Halligan

Screen International

It’s executed in the same spirit of openness and friendship that O’Brien brought to her own headlong passions and you get the feeling that, yes, she’d think it got her right.

Oct 30, 2024

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Harry Guerin

RTÉ (Ireland)

Narrated by Jessie Buckley from O'Brien's diaries and memoir, this film shows that you can be as tough as nails and vulnerable at the same time.

Rated: 5/5

Feb 7, 2025

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Hilary A White

Sunday Independent (Ireland)

Regal of tone and painstaking in her choice of words, O’Brien makes for a defiant, wistful, often sanguine, but ultimately brittle interviewee.

Rated: 4/5

Feb 5, 2025

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Aoife Fealy

Film Ireland Magazine

All in all, this portrayal of one woman’s life, both public and private but all from a literary standpoint, is intimate, heartfelt, insightful and rewarding.

Jan 31, 2025

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Sinéad O'Shea

Director

Edna O'Brien

Self

Jessie Buckley

Edna

Declan Conlon

Ernest

Gabriel Byrne

Self

Sinéad O'Shea

Writer

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Synopsis

In 1960, a young Irish woman named Edna O’Brien wrote a sexually frank debut novel, The Country Girls. She became a literary sensation, writing for The New Yorker, delivering provocative interviews, and authoring screenplays. Her success enraged her writer husband and made her a pariah in her native Ireland, where her books were banned and burned. She would make her home in London, where she conducted numerous love affairs, hosted star-studded parties, and made and lost a fortune. In July 2024, Edna passed away and this film provides a final testimony from her, aged 93, as she reflects upon her extraordinary life for filmmaker Sinéad O'Shea's camera. Granting the director access to her personal journals, read aloud in the film by the Oscar-nominated Irish actress Jessie Buckley, and with additional perspectives offered from Gabriel Byrne, Walter Mosley and an array of renowned writers, Edna does not shy from any subject.

Director: Sinéad O'Shea
Producer: Eleanor Emptage
Screenwriter: Sinéad O'Shea
Production Co: SOS Films
Genre: Documentary, Biography
Original Language: British English
Runtime: 1h 38m