The Playboys

Tara is a young, beautiful, unmarried woman with a strong will of her own. She gives birth to a child and refuses to divulge the name of the father. She falls passionately in love with the itinerant actor Tom when his theatre company, The Playboys, come to her home town in Ireland in the late 50's. The town's policeman, who has been in love with Tara for a long time, does all he can to stop her budding romance. She is torn between eloping with her beloved and remaining in the small town.

Comment:
The Playboys is a real ''film film''. It has all the classic ingredients; a budding secret (who is the father of the child?); a goodlooking stranger who comes to town and changes beautiful Tara's life and the life of the conservative town; the rivals who get even. The film is constructed sort of like a Western, but the 19th century has been exchanged for the 1950's, the Western town for a small Irish community, John Wayne for a slapstick actor and so on.
But thanks to the skillful story line and the excellent acting, The Playboys effectively avoids getting trapped in cliches.
Albert Finney is as usual brilliant in the part of the policeman Hegarty. Even though
Hegarty is basically thoroughly evil, Finney manages to modulate the part in such a way that Hegarty becomes a tragic figure we can feel compassion for.
Aidan Quinn, perhaps best known for his part as evil fugitive in Stakeout, also does an excellent performance as the charming and kind rebel Tom. The scenes between him and Robin Wright (Tara) are so convincing that I found myself feeling like a child at a matinee, hoping that they get married at the end.
Robin Wright does her first major part on film in The Playboys. She shows that she definitely has the potential of becoming a big star. Wright is among the coolest and sexiest we have seen on film in the way of single mothers. But this is no loss to her cre.dibility. Her portrayal of Tara, the truly independent woman, is genuine and unaffected.
It is true that The Playboys takes place in the 50's, but since Ireland is a die-hard conservative society with old-fashioned Catholic morality, the film has a dig at the values which are stilt prevalent on the green island.
Jonas Lagerstrom

Orig. titel
Playboys: Medverkande
Robin Wright, Aidan Quinn, Albert Finney: Producent
William P. Cartlidge: Manus
Shane Connaughton: Foto
Jack Conroy: Musik
Jean-Claude Petit: Talat språk
English