Product Details

• Actors: Olivia Williams, Andie MacDowell, Johnny Brennan, Iain Glen, Jennifer Buckley
• Directors: Gillies MacKinnon
• Writers: Cynthia Cidre, Maeve Binchy, Shane Connaughton
• Producers: AnneMarie Naughton, Bill Godfrey, Brigid Olen, Chris Auty
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 5.1)
• Subtitles: Spanish
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Studio: First Look Pictures
• DVD Release Date: October 9, 2007
• Run Time: 97 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000Q677CC
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #69,418 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Tara Road" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Marilyn Vine’s (Andie MacDowell) idyllic life in Connecticut is devastated by the tragic death of her only son Dale during his 15th birthday party. 3,000 miles away, Ria Lynch’s (Olivia Williams) marriage comes to a stunningly abrupt end in Dublin, Ireland, when husband Danny (Iain Glen) reveals that he is leaving her for his pregnant mistress, Bernadette (Heike Makatsch). An accidental phone call brings these two otherwise unrelated women together and, in their mutual need for space and time alone, they agree to a two-month house exchange. In swapping homes, both women slowly find healing and strength through new surroundings and the kindness of others and gradually learn to accept the reality of their changed lives.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars perhaps changing surroundings can help, November 3, 2007

By 

R. M. Williams "just an avid reader" (tucson, arizona USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Tara Road (DVD)

It is a fascinating plot, well executed, with excellent character acting, well worth a watching.

The plot is about two hurting women. The first lost her son in a motorcycle accident on his birthday, on the motorcycle his father gave them.
The second has just found out that her husband's girlfriend is pregnant and he is leaving the wife for the girlfriend.
both women hope that a change of scenery offers a chance to fix what ails them. so they exchange houses for the summer.

What happens with each reflects partly the conditions, partly each woman's desire to heal and be whole again. The Dublin house is on Tara Road, it is the center of a large family with lots of social connections. The New England house is private, not surrounded by neighbors but isolated from all but 2 or 3. In a believable and understandable way, each woman adapts to her new surroundings, adopts the others house along with all of the other woman's attachments and begin to fix what ails them.

It is cute without being maudlin, you cheer for each, sharing their pain and hopes for a better life. You grimace when she takes the stupid husband back into her bed one last time, you love it when she tosses the vases and the bust at him. It is a tear jerker of a movie, with about equal amounts of tears and cheers, an upbeat ending where the bad guys suffer at the hands of their long suffering wives. All in all a decent movie.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Soap Opera Content, but with some Fine Actors, October 10, 2007

By 

Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Tara Road (2005) (DVD)

TARA ROAD is a thickly populated movie that reaches for the female audience and succeeds in addressing old problems of infidelity and marriage conflicts. The problem is the story by highly published Irish author Maeve Binchy (adapted from Binchy's novel for the screen by Cynthia Cidre) is 'used goods' and while there are many moments of touching dialog there are equal moments of sham resolutions that in the end prove disappointing despite the cast of actors portraying these only occasionally interesting characters.

Two women, each bruised by life events, trade homes (Dublin, Ireland and Connecticut) to find the space to recover. In Connecticut, Marilyn (Andie MacDowell) is recovering from the accidental motorcycle (a birthday gift from his father Greg - August Zirner) death of her young son: grief has made her withdraw and lose her feelings for Greg. In Dublin, Ireland Ria (Olivia Williams) is blissfully happy in her beautiful home on Tara Road which she shares with her two children and her newly discovered unfaithful husband Danny (Iain Glen) - a lothario who has had affairs with Ria's best friend Rosemary (Maria Doyle Kennedy) and now confesses to the pregnancy of his current mistress Bernadette (Heike Makatsch). In too quick an instance Ria and Marilyn decide to swap homes with the hope that separation form their families will give them room to readjust to life. Each woman encounters the friends and neighbors of the other: Marilyn meets restaurateur Colm (Stephen Rea) among Ria's odd assortment of acquaintances while Ria encounters the brother of Greg and some intrusive and over the top friends of Marilyn. Gradually it all comes to a very predictable conclusion that simply solves too many problems too easily.

Director Gillies MacKinnon seems to have difficulty deciding how to maintain a tone for the film - a tearjerker versus a situation comedy. There are moments when the audience connects with some of the characters, but these are too few and separated by far too many stretches of weak writing. Despite some fine acting the movie never quite flies. Grady Harp, October 07

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Maeve Binchy's Marvelous Novel Comes to the Screen, December 18, 2007

By 

Antoinette Klein (Hoover, Alabama USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Tara Road (DVD)

I was thrilled to find this released on DVD in the US. Although it had played in theatres abroad, it was never released for big-screen viewing in US. Too bad, as I found it most enjoyable and a reminder of how great Maeve Binchy's "Tara Road" was as a novel.

Although the movie only recounts about the final half of the book, the director has been able to lay open the characters of Marilyn and Ria and expose their deepest hurts in this engrossing tale of crumbling marriages. Andie McDowell gives an excellent portrayal of the emotionally frozen Marilyn, a Connecticut mother, reeling from the death of her fifteen-year-old son on his birthday. The surprise gift from his Dad, a motorcycle, leads to his death and causes a wide rift between the parents. Across the Atlantic at another birthday party in Dublin, the content Ria Lynch (Olivia Williams) learns from her husband Danny (Iain Glen) that he is leaving her for his pregnant girlfriend. Both women are at the end of their emotional ropes and through a midnight phone call are connected and arrange a house swap. Believing no problem is so big it can't be run away from, the two women each slip easily into the other's life. Each learns in her own way that life will never be the same but that doesn't mean it is over. Binchy's wonderful tale of healing transfers to the screen thanks to outstanding casting, lush scenery, and heartfelt situations. "Tara Road" is a most enjoyable movie to curl up and entertain yourself with for a couple of hours.