There’s something irresistible about the promise of an Irish film steeped in emotion, rich in character, and imbued with a touch of the poetic. Irish cinema, after all, has long mastered the art of mixing lyrical storytelling with gritty realism—think of the unflinching honesty of Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees of Inisherin or the existential bite of Samuel Beckett’s theater. But while some Irish films sink their teeth into truth with raw intensity, others choose instead to swaddle themselves in gauzy romanticism, leaning on sentiment like a crutch. Unfortunately, Four Letters of Love—directed by Polly Steele and based on the novel by Niall Williams—falls squarely into the latter camp, delivering a visually lush but emotionally hollow experience.
To be fair, the film never pretends to be anything but a sweeping love story. Its title even gestures toward a grand narrative structure: four interconnected tales of affection, longing, and fate. Yet despite the promise of layered storytelling, what we’re actually given feels less like a delicately interwoven narrative and more like an overly sugared confection that’s melted into a sticky mess.
Let’s begin with the film’s aesthetic. From its opening scenes, Four Letters of Love announces itself as a visual feast. Each frame looks like it’s been carefully curated, its lighting softened to a dreamy glow, its landscape painted in postcard-perfect hues. If every shot isn’t quite a masterpiece, they’re certainly trying for it—with the result often feeling more like Thomas Kinkade than Caravaggio. It’s the kind of cinematography that insists on its beauty a little too forcefully, as if hoping that enough golden-hour lighting might distract from the emotional thinness at the film’s core.
The First Letter: A Boy, A Father, and A Divine Revelation
Our guide into this sugar-coated world is Nicholas (played by Fionn O’Shea), a sensitive young man who serves as the story’s narrator and emotional anchor. He takes us back to the early 1970s, to a moment that supposedly alters the course of his life forever: the day his father (Pierce Brosnan), a no-nonsense civil servant, has a spiritual epiphany.
It happens, improbably enough, while sitting at his desk. A beam of sunlight illuminates a letter on his table, and just like that, he abandons his bureaucratic life in favor of painting landscapes. One imagines the divine light whispering something like, “Go forth, my child, and purchase oils and canvas.”
Brosnan plays both the younger and older versions of this father figure. Initially, he appears as himself, suave and silver-haired, but later dons a voluminous, somewhat alarming wig that seems lifted straight from a low-budget fantasy film. One almost expects him to shout “There can be only one!” at some point—a nod to the Highlander aesthetic his hairpiece inadvertently invokes.
This sudden parental pivot from civil service to artistry is, naturally, meant to symbolize something deeper: a breaking away from convention, a rekindling of passion, perhaps even a genetic handoff of romantic idealism to young Nicholas. But what it mostly does is set the tone for a film deeply committed to the idea that artistic, emotionally sensitive men are fated to fall in love with ethereal women—especially if fate gets a little supernatural help along the way.
The Second Letter: A Poet’s Pain and A Mother’s Fear
Parallel to Nicholas’ story unfolds another thread, this one anchored by the ever-compelling Gabriel Byrne and Helena Bonham Carter. They play a married couple: he a quietly anguished poet, she a fiercely protective mother. Together, they have two children. One suffers a tragic medical episode—a seizure or some kind of fit—that leaves him paralyzed. The other, Isabel or “Issy” (Ann Skelly), is a spirited young girl with dreams and a twinkle in her eye that all but screams “romantic interest.”
When Issy’s independence starts to blossom, she’s promptly sent away to a convent school, as so often happens in tales of Irish youth. It’s a fate that has less to do with religion than it does with the narrative need to isolate female characters just enough to keep them tantalizingly out of reach. Skelly plays Issy with the right balance of whimsy and earnestness, making her one of the more watchable parts of the film. And Bonham Carter, always magnetic even when misused, plays her maternal role with characteristic fire, determined to protect Issy from the heartache that inevitably seems to accompany passion in these kinds of stories.
This thread of the film might have worked better in isolation, given room to breathe. But as part of a larger patchwork of plots, it often feels rushed, like a novel compressed into a summary. And perhaps that’s no accident: Niall Williams, who also penned the screenplay, adapted the material from his own novel. One wonders whether this story, so reliant on emotional beats and interiority, was better suited to the longer, more forgiving rhythms of prose—or better yet, the serialized format of television.
The Third Letter: Two Souls, One Destiny
As fate would have it—and fate is the operative force here—Nicholas and Issy are destined to meet. This isn’t a spoiler, not really. The film spends so much time layering on hints and narrative foreshadowing that their eventual convergence feels more like an obligation than a revelation.
Yet when they do meet, their chemistry is more assumed than felt. They are attractive people in a beautiful place, saying meaningful things and gazing into one another’s eyes as the music swells. It’s cinematic shorthand for romance, but there’s something curiously lifeless at its heart. One longs for the messy, volatile energy of a McDonagh romance—full of jagged edges, violent declarations, and emotional combustion. Instead, we get moonlit conversations and whispered poetry. It’s all very tasteful, and somewhat boring.
The Fourth Letter: Fate, Faith, and the Problem of Meaning
As the film winds toward its inevitable, bittersweet conclusion, the fourth narrative emerges: one that questions whether love—however transcendent—is enough. The film wants to assert that love, even when unfulfilled or interrupted, is still the most important force in life. It’s a noble idea, but in practice, the movie never quite earns that conclusion. Instead, it leans on montage and mood to deliver its emotional weight, trusting that audiences will fill in the blanks.
Perhaps the film’s most revealing flaw is its predictability. Even as the story moves through multiple timelines and characters, its emotional beats land exactly where you expect them to. The characters seem trapped not just by their fates, but by the screenplay’s reluctance to surprise or challenge them. And while some might see that as comforting, others will find it tedious.
Performance Check: A Strong Cast, Lightly Used
To its credit, Four Letters of Love features a sterling cast. Fionn O’Shea brings a delicate vulnerability to Nicholas, while Ann Skelly radiates charm as Issy. Gabriel Byrne is as dependable as ever, lending gravitas to even the most overwrought lines. And Helena Bonham Carter, though somewhat underutilized, injects much-needed passion into the proceedings.
Pierce Brosnan, meanwhile, seems a bit lost at sea. He’s always been a charming screen presence, but here his performance veers between stilted and theatrical. Whether that’s due to the script, the direction, or simply the challenge of portraying a character whose spiritual transformation is more told than shown, is hard to say. What’s certain is that Brosnan is better than the material he’s given here—and he knows it.
Visuals: Pretty but Empty
The film’s cinematography, while undeniably lovely, often feels like it’s working overtime to compensate for the thinness of the narrative. Ireland’s natural beauty is on full display—lush meadows, craggy coasts, and sun-dappled fields abound—but the film leans so hard on these visual tropes that they begin to feel more like stock imagery than genuine expressions of place or mood. It’s the cinematic equivalent of a postcard: pretty, but ultimately impersonal.
Final Thoughts: A Missed Opportunity
In the end, Four Letters of Love is a film with noble intentions but misguided execution. It wants to celebrate the power of love, the mystery of fate, and the beauty of Ireland, but it does so with such heavy-handedness that it borders on parody. One gets the feeling that the film is trying to rebut the darker, more sardonic vision of Irish identity offered by filmmakers like Martin and John Michael McDonagh—and perhaps even legends like Neil Jordan or Jim Sheridan—by presenting an Ireland that’s all heart and no bite.
But in doing so, it loses what makes Irish storytelling so powerful: its complexity, its contradiction, its ability to marry beauty with tragedy, and poetry with pain.
Would this have worked better as a mini-series? Almost certainly. In a longer format, the characters could have developed more organically, the stories given more room to interweave naturally, and the emotional arcs could have earned their climaxes rather than rushing toward them. As it stands, the film feels like a highlight reel of a much richer story—a visual sonnet stripped of its stanzas.
Still, it’s not without its pleasures. The cast is consistently watchable, the landscapes are a balm for the eyes, and the music swells on cue. If you’re in the mood for something soft, sentimental, and vaguely literary, you might find yourself seduced by its surface charms.Just don’t expect the kind of edge, complexity, or emotional depth that Irish cinema so often delivers at its best. Four Letters of Love is a letter you’ll read once, smile politely at, and then quietly tuck away—pretty, but not particularly memorable.
