With great dramatic flair, this fine film depicts how a larger-than-life young man who is both abrasive and fesity has a transforming effect on a sheltered friend.
Comment
02/04/05
Rory O'Shea Was Here (2005)
49
%
Tomatometer
How does the Tomatometer work 
Reviews Counted:69
Fresh:34
Rotten:35
Average Rating:5.8/10
Consensus: The dramatic aspects of Rory O'Shea Was Here veer into mawkish, formulaic sentiment, which undercuts the characters' individuality.
Runtime: 1 hr 45 mins
Genre: Dramas
Synopsis: The winner of the Audience Award at the 2004 Edinburgh International Film Festival, Rory O'Shea Was Here is an extraordinary story of determination that fuses highly emotional drama with bracingly... [More]
Starring: Steven Robertson, James McAvoy, Romola Garai, Brenda Fricker
Director: Damien O'Donnell
Reviews for Rory O'Shea Was Here
A charming, if cliched, story of a sheltered young man's discovery of his own potential through the auspices of a good-hearted rapscallion.
02/04/05
Here, comedy tries to compete with maudlin underpinnings, and eventually the movie drowns in a sea of soap.
02/04/05
Writer Jeffrey Caine and director Damien O'Donnell all but cut out our vital organ with moments of hard-sell poignancy.
02/04/05
What keeps us watching are the two leads.
02/04/05
Grows ever more manipulative and predictable.
02/04/05
In this earnest but ill-conceived message movie, Irish director Damien O'Donnell appears determined to teach us a lesson without quite understanding it himself.
02/04/05
Rory O'Shea Was Here of course has its heart in the right place. Its imagination, disappointingly, is in all the usual places.
02/04/05
Thanks to a liberal dose of bracing humor and fresh, believable characters, Rory O'Shea emerges as the kind of inspirational movie that actually earns its crowd-rousing response as opposed to merely pushing the same old, emotion-coaxing buttons.
02/04/05
Top CriticO'Donnell never finds the right balance of pathos, sympathy and likability that would make you want to spend much time with the guys.
02/04/05
The well-researched film doesn't shy away from the daily physical challenges Rory and Michael face, and the two leads bring a rigorous vitality to the characters.
02/04/05
This story would fall apart if you didn't believe in the two lead actors' performances and both men do outstanding jobs making their physical limitations believable.
02/04/05
Real people with real problems deserve to be more than proverbial Christopher Reeves bolted, as THE ONION once suggested, to proverbial Washington Monuments.
02/03/05
There are much better ways to remind oneself about the preciousness of existence than this mostly lifeless film.
02/03/05
This is a lovely, moving tale of a powerful friendship.
02/03/05
Despite the periodic twinkling, the occasional detours into sentimentality and, most egregiously, the syrupy soundtrack that threatens to engulf the story at every turn, Rory O'Shea Was Here is better than the usual three-stage journey of courage.
02/03/05
Top CriticWildly uneven, constantly veering between honest emotions and insights and bald manipulation and contrivance.
02/03/05
Top CriticEnjoyable piece of middlebrow British ephemera.
02/03/05
McAvoy puts across the part with considerable skill, but unfortunately the picture as a whole, though well-intentioned and likable, is also formulaic and manipulative.
02/03/05
Superbly acted.
02/03/05
What’s Hot On RT
Other News
Fresh Links
Featured
RT on YouTube 
Subscribe to RT's YouTube channel and don't miss a second of our cracking video content.
RT on Twitter
Follow Rotten Tomatoes and join us as we tweet about the week's releases.
IGN RSS Feeds