10-year-old Fiona is sent to live with her grandparents in a small fishing village in Donegal, Ireland. She soon learns the local legend that an ancestor of hers married a Selkie - a seal who can turn into a human. Years earlier, her baby brother was washed out to sea and never seen again, so when Fiona spies a naked little boy on the abandoned Isle of Roan Inish, she is compelled to investigate..
The rhythms are placid and the camerawork (by Haskell Wexler) is simple and unfussy. The film's a charm.
– Bruce Diones,
New Yorker,
3 May 2013
rotten:
John Sayles' latest marks his entry into family-pic terrain, a crossing that draws pleasant but unexciting results.
– Dennis Harvey,
Variety,
11 Mar 2008
fresh:
Moving from passion fish to mystical seals, versatile filmmaker John Sayles' latest is a first-rate, all-ages fairy tale steeped in Irish folklore.
– Michael Rechtshaffen,
Hollywood Reporter,
11 Mar 2008
fresh:
This is all rather low-key and uninsistent, but the settings are gorgeous, and Haskell Wexler's cinematography makes the most of them.
– Jonathan Rosenbaum,
Chicago Reader,
11 Mar 2008
fresh:
Tales within tales, a subtle sense of economic and social realities, fine landscape photography and strong performances make for an engrossing, unusual fantasy.