In the Name of the Father

(Jim Sheridan, Ireland/UK/US 1993, 133 min., 35mm)

12 Postcards from Prison. Four years after making his debut with the remarkable My Left Foot, director Jim Sheridan reunited with Daniel Day-Lewis for this harrowing adaptation of Gerry Conlon’s memoir Proved Innocent. In 1975 Conlon (played here by Day-Lewis) received a life sentence for participating in the IRA bombing of an English pub—a crime which resulted in five deaths of four British officers and a civilian, but which Conlon did not, in fact, commit. The film is a riveting account of Conlon’s ordeal, but the emotional heart of the film lies in the embittered relationship between Conlon and his father (Pete Postlethwaite) who, after being found guilty of assisting his son, soon joins him behind bars.