Letters to the Editor: ‘That They May Face the Rising Sun’ is a movie masterpiece 

One reader writes in praise of the film adaptation of John McGahern's final novel, while others consider a range of issues including climate change and mental health 

Barry Ward in a scene from the film adaptation of John McGahern's novel, ‘That They May Face the Rising Sun’, directed by Pat Collins. 

The film, That They May Face The Rising Sun leaves a haunting and unsettling afterglow. The original John McGahern novel, his last great oeuvre if I’m not mistaken, was a literary classic; the film of same by West Cork director Pat Collins is of an equal standard.

The slow depiction of rural life in the west of Ireland some time in the 1960s/70s unfolds at such a pedestrian pace that occasionally one looks at the time to see if it is worth staying to the end.