Cal

Too sensitive for the abattoir where his father works and with no stomach for the IRA driving jobs he is pressured into, Cal tries to dodge the Protestant gangs that roam his predominantly Loyalist estates and yearns after the local librarian. That he should have driven the car carrying the gunman who killed her husband, entails a familiar pattern of love laced with guilt and doomed to founder in the great divide. Bernard MacLaverty's fine script keeps the action batting along and the focus narrow, concentrating on the human tragedy rather than plugging any partisan line. The symbolism is thrashed just a little hard at times, but on the whole it's a most impressive debut from O'Connor, strongly acted all round.