Blue Road: The Edna O’Brien Story Review

Blue Road: The Edna O’Brien Story Review

Cast: Edna O’Brien, Jessie Buckley, Gabriel Byrne

Genre: Documentary

Director: Sinéad O’Shea

In Irish Cinemas: 31st January 2025

 

Sinéad O’Shea’s greatest tribute to the legendary writer Edna O’Brien in Blue Road: The Edna O’Brien Story is her ability to capture the depth and richness of O’Brien’s voice. O’Brien, who so effortlessly transported readers to the Irish countryside with her evocative prose, is not merely represented in the film through extended passages from The Country Girls or The Girl With the Green Eyes. Instead, O’Shea finds power in the way O’Brien speaks beyond the page. By interweaving archival interviews spanning decades with a final, profoundly personal sit-down conducted in the months before O’Brien’s passing in July 2024, the director allows viewers to experience the subtle shifts in the author’s timbre over the years. Complementing this is actress Jessie Buckley, who brings O’Brien’s journals to life, relishing every sharp, zesty adjective in a way that honours the writer’s unmistakable flair.

The documentary unfolds as fluidly as O’Brien’s lyrical descriptions, making the struggles that shaped her life all the more striking. Born into a conservative Catholic household in County Clare—where the only book in the house was a Bible—O’Brien’s intellectual world expanded when she stumbled upon Introducing James Joyce, introduction by T.S. Eliot made her realise that the quiet dramas of her own home could be worthy of literature. Though she eventually became known for her glamorous London salon, where luminaries gathered for lively soirées, her journey to literary recognition was effortless. O’Shea skillfully captures the layers of her memory, revisiting key moments from multiple perspectives, mirroring the way O’Brien herself might revisit a scene in her fiction, each retelling shaped by time and distance.

O’Brien entered the literary world at a time when Irish women writers were largely sidelined. Male authors dominated the scene, and as Gabriel Byrne recalls, they were reluctant to welcome her into their circles—mainly their pubs. Yet she broke through, turning a successful magazine column under a pseudonym into an opportunity to publish her first novel. Though her books were often controversial in Ireland, she found a receptive audience abroad, particularly in England and North America, where she continued to write about the tensions growing up in a society that constrained women’s desires. O’Shea emphasises the sense of exile that followed O’Brien throughout her life—whether as a writer seeking acceptance in her homeland, a woman navigating an unbalanced marriage, or, in later years, a literary icon forced to rent a home after financial struggles. Her relationship with her husband, Ernest Gébler, looms large in the film. Once a promising author, Gébler came to resent O’Brien’s growing success. Their sons, Carlo and Sasha Gébler, recount a marriage in which their mother was forced to sign over her earnings, receiving only a fraction in return. O’Shea ingeniously conveys this imbalance through voiceover, having Declan Conlon read from Gébler’s writings in a verbal sparring match with Buckley’s spirited reading of O’Brien’s words—though, as the film suggests, O’Brien always had the stronger voice.

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After leaving Gébler in 1964, O’Brien fully embraced the freedom of the Swinging Sixties, moving in a glittering social circle that included Richard Burton and Marlon Brando—though she was amused to find that Brando, rather than exuding his trademark charisma, mostly preferred to drink milk. Yet despite the star-studded anecdotes, it’s clear that O’Brien was always the true centre of attention. Her wit and candour made her a sought-after talk show guest, providing O’Shea with a treasure trove of interviews where the author’s sharp mind and fierce independence shine.

Blue Road is both a celebration of O’Brien’s literary legacy and a testament to her resilience. The film includes warm tributes from admirers such as Devil in a Blue Dress author Walter Mosley, who was drawn to a creative writing class she taught at City College in New York when she turned to academia for financial stability. Yet there’s an unmistakable poignancy to the timing of the documentary’s production. O’Brien’s primary interview was conducted in August 2023, with a follow-up eight months later as her health declined, lending the film an air of finality. While some chapters of her life—such as her politically charged State of the Nation trilogy in the 1990s—are necessarily condensed, O’Shea’s brisk, incisive storytelling reflects O’Brien’s temperament: direct, vivid, and deeply felt. A passionate movie lover, O’Brien would no doubt appreciate the cinematic treatment she receives here. With Blue Road, she finally takes centre stage as the star she always was.

Overall: 7.5/10

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