Cal

Cal is a young Catholic man living in Northern Ireland whose father wants him to take a job at the local abattoir, though Cal has no interest in that kind of work. He and his father, Shamie, belong to the Catholic minority in a Protestant neighbourhood, where they face hostility and threats that eventually force them from their home. Cal becomes involved with the IRA, taking part in an attack in which a Protestant policeman named Morton is killed. He then becomes drawn to Marcella, Morton's widow, and the friendship that develops between them grows into an affair, even as the organisation seeks to involve him once more and the police begin to close in.

The film is a drama with romantic and thriller elements, directed by Pat O'Connor in what was his first feature-length credit, from a screenplay based on Bernard MacLaverty's novel. John Lynch plays Cal opposite Helen Mirren as Marcella, with Donal McCann, Ray McAnally, John Kavanagh and Stevan Rimkus among the cast of 23 credited performers. David Puttnam produced. O'Connor went on to direct Inventing the Abbotts and Sweet November much later in his career.

On IMDb, the film holds a rating of 6.5 from around 1,800 votes, while on TMDB it stands at 5.8 from a much smaller number of votes. A critics' rating of 7.3 across 13 reviews places it somewhat above the audience scores recorded on IMDb and clearly ahead of the TMDB figure, which rests on limited voting.