A portrait of the (cinema) artist as a young man, demonstrating the power of movies, even as we sat in a mostly empty theater. The story was sweet, if conventional, and well told, per usual for Stephen Spielberg. One wonders, though, how it would play if the viewer didn’t know beforehand that the story was autobiographical and that the kid, for all his troubles, would ultimately emerge as the most successful filmmaker of his generation. I could have done without the whole Judd Hirsch episode and the lazy pace that made this feel more like a memoir than a drama. But in a year of experimental dreck, an old-fashioned film from a master was welcome.

A donkey? Really? Maybe this was a comment on life in Poland (not good) in places the donkey happened to be, although the donkey had no real role, other than looking donkey-like. Times were mostly tough – no respect – and they didn’t come to a happy end.

While the movie was set in 1923 rural Ireland, it could as easily have been written then, by Sean O’Casey or J.M. Synge, so well it captured the tragedy of the Irish: men living a hardscrabble existence, playing music (hence the title), going to the pub, making a mountain out of a molehill and being stubborn till it ruins you. But my gosh, the scenery on the coast was beautiful, and the performances of Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson were enough to make you cry. With only three stage sets, I could see the Irish Repertory Theatre performing this tomorrow.

A solid telling of a heartwarming story, although we knew, of course, everything before it happened. The other challenge was how to dramatize phone calls, which led to a lot of interruptions while tending to the kids, walking down the street, meeting with the boss and sleeping. I have no idea why someone felt it necessary to cast a devilish British movie star, Carey Mulligan, as a hard-boiled New York reporter. Her character never took with me, but I quite appreciated Zoe Kazan as her running mate. The movie suffers in comparison to Spotlight, let alone the template-creator, All the President’s Men. And while Harvey Weinstein has been brought to justice (pending appeal), there remains the shadow of the press’s inability to dent Donald Trump.

Powerful. There’s not much suspense in the story, if you’ve read the book or even a movie review, but the drama is carried by a tour-de-force performance by Jessica Chastain–best I’ve ever seen her. Eddie Redmayne is the other “good nurse,” and his strange accent makes his character fairly inscrutable, which, it turns out, is the true story the film is based on. Noah Emmerich is a welcome third presence, doing his usual thing. As often, the story would not be believable if it weren’t true; it’s the acting here that is convincing.