Boys and Girl from County Clare, The MPAA Rating: R Entertainment: +1 Content: -2

NOTE: This film's MPAA rating is "Not Rated". Based on the film's content, we list it as "R".

This musical comedy has the beautiful countryside of Ireland as its backdrop. Jimmy McHahon (Colm Meany) and his older brother John Joe McHahon (Bernard Hill) are adversaries who havent seen each other for more than 20 years. As Jimmy and his musical ensemble travel from Liverpool to the All-Ireland Traditional Music Competition, John Joe does the same with his award-winning musical band. Anticipating each others arrival, each brother arranges certain mishaps to delay the other and keep him out of the music competition. At the festival, where the music is folksy and energetic, various relationships bud between male and female musicians, including a shy boy named Teddy (Shaun Evans) and a fiery Irish gal named Anne (Andrea Corr). The passion for music, the search for love and the need for acceptance set apart The Boys and Girl from County Clare.

Those raised in the Irish Catholic tradition will likely appreciate the cultural significance of this film. It has some tremendous messages about learning lessons from regret, the importance of a man pursuing a woman as a woman rather than as a sex object, and the contentment that can be had when you have music as your friend. The music competition draws all of the characters together, giving them time to resolve their issues. There is an underlying underhandedness and mean-spiritedness in the film as well as excessive social drinking that leads to drunkenness and vomiting. Jimmy is said to have five wives, and there are several situations of nudity and lust. These negative elements, along with more than 20 f-words, two of them spoken by a child, prevent Preview from giving a positive acceptability rating to The Boys and Girl from County Clare, despite the fact that it ultimately draws the right conclusions for life.

Preview Reviewer: Brian Hughes
Distributor: First Look Media