James Joyce's masterpiece, Ulysses, is a tough book to adapt to film. It uses a stream-of-consciousness technique to open up the private worlds of its characters to the reader. Joyce's language is rich, full of metaphors, puns and allusions to mythological heroes. It also has a uniquely Irish perspective, shaped by Joyce's own struggles against the dominant repressive Catholic regime in early twentieth century Ireland. Joyce enjoyed films. He opened up the first movie theatre in Dublin, and he even discussed adaptations of his work with the legendary Russian director Sergei Eisenstein. Alas, his material does not lend itself well to the cinema. The last attempt to create a film adaptation was Ulysses (1967) directed by Joseph Strick.

Now we have Bl,.m (pronounced Bloom), due for release this year, and directed by Sean Walsh. Sean Walsh gave a short introduction to this film at the Galway Film Fleadh. He noted that while most people have heard of Ulysses very few have read it completely, and even the name itself strikes a sense of educational inferiority into people's hearts. Hence, the title of the film steers clear of the baggage associated with the title Ulysses, but thankfully, the film itself is a worthy adaptation of Joyce's classic work.

The three central roles are played by Stephen Rea (Leopold Bloom), Angeline Ball (Molly Bloom) and Hugh O'Connor (Stephen Dedalus). Angeline Ball gives a stunning performance as the voluptuous and sexy Molly. It will be a crime if Angeline is not nominated for every top award going this year. Stephen Rea is perfect as Leopold, a Jewish Irish man whose wife is having an affair and who has an entertaining inner life to compensate. I've always been a fan of Hugh O'Connor's work, but found his portrayal of Stephen somewhat theatrical, but perhaps that was Hugh's aim. Stephen after all is a young writer, who pals around with other creative types who sit around, drink, philosophise and discuss literary works such as Hamlet. Hugh is an extremely talented actor, so I must assume this was his goal. It is wonderful that this film has come to life under Irish direction, in Ireland, and played by Irish actors. Too often we have non-Irish actors and directors adapting Irish works for the cinema. In this particular case I think the film would have suffered because of it.