Plot: Tara Maguire (Robin Wright), a young freethinking woman, scandalizes her provincial Irish village in the 1950s by having a baby out of a wedlock, and refusing to name the father. She has a rare beauty and every man in town desires her, especially Sergeant Hegarty (Albert Finney).
The arrival of a dramatic troupe stirs things up even more, especially when she falls in love with one of the “Playboys”, Tom Casey (Aidan Quinn)

Director: Gillies MacKinnon

Writing Credits: Shane Connaughton and Kerry Crabbe

Cast: Albert Finney, Aidan Quinn, Robin Wright, Milo O’Shea, Alan Devlin, Niamh Cusack, Ian McElhinney and Stella McCusker.

Music by: Jean-Claude Petit

Genre: Drama

Budget: $6.000.000

Filming Dates: July 1, 1991 to August 24, 1991

Filming Locations: Redhills Village, County Cavan, Ireland

Release Date: April 24, 1992 (USA) | May 29, 1992 (UK)

USA Box Office Opening Weekend: $32,525 | 2 theaters | $16,262 average

Total Box Office USA: $4,906,900

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for scenes of sensuality and brief, strong violence.

Runtime: 109 minutes

Robin Wright as the freethinking Tara Maguire

Tara Maguire (Robin Wright) is a free-thinking, fiercely independent and deeply rebellious young woman living in rural Ireland in the late 1950s.

She is very much a woman who thinks for herself and refuses to simply accept the rules, conventions and expectations imposed on her by the conservative community around her.

Tara is bold, outspoken, passionate and strong-willed. She is the town’s “one serious rebel”, a firebrand who challenges the restrictions of a deeply Catholic and repressed society.

What makes Tara particularly striking is that she refuses to be ashamed of her choices. She proudly raises her illegitimate child without allowing the scandalized opinions of the townspeople to dictate how she should live.

She wants love and connection without surrendering her individuality. Her free spirit and refusal to be controlled are precisely what make her such a powerful presence.

There is also a fascinating contrast between Tara’s tough exterior and her emotional vulnerability. She can be defiant and fearless one moment and deeply affected the next.

Her strength does not mean that she lacks sensitivity; rather, she has learned to protect that sensitivity behind a formidable personality.

Robin Wright plays her with an understated intensity. Much of Tara’s personality comes through in her eyes, expressions, silences and physical presence, rather than through exaggerated dramatic gestures.

Wright gives her a sense of someone who is constantly thinking and judging the world around her, even when she says very little.

Ultimately, Tara Maguire is a free thinker, a rebel, and a woman ahead of her time. Tough but vulnerable, passionate but self-possessed, Tara refuses to let the expectations of her community define who she is.

She represents the collision between an old, restrictive rural Ireland and a more independent, modern way of thinking.