Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Film myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.In her eighties, novelist Edna O\u2019Brien \u2014 who died last year aged 93 \u2014 was awarded the status of \u201cSaoi\u201d, an Irish honour meaning \u201cwise one\u201d. Her wisdom was hard won, as shown by Sin\u00e9ad O\u2019Shea\u2019s documentary Blue Road: The Edna O\u2019Brien Story. It covers O\u2019Brien\u2019s life, beginning with rural childhood in County Clare and her emergence as a writer with her 1960 debut novel The Country Girls \u2014 a success that led to being demonised in Ireland for her sexual frankness and revolt against women\u2019s repression.As well as ample archive footage, the film includes passages from O\u2019Brien\u2019s diaries, read by Jessie Buckley. These are extraordinarily candid, variously expressing euphoria, desperation, rage, fascination at the whirlwind changes of her life. Most alarming are the revelations about her fraught marriage with the writer Ernest G\u00e9bler who, increasingly resentful of her success, appears to have scrawled his own acrimonious comments in her diary.The film in turn offers an in-depth psychological portrait; a history of modern Ireland and its social attitudes; and a depiction of a time when literary success could bring head-spinning social glory. At the height of her fame, O\u2019Brien was famous for her extravagant parties, and for hobnobbing with the likes of Judy Garland, Jane Fonda and Paul McCartney. We hear her accounts of a night with Robert Mitchum and of a long, painful liaison with a married British politician she dubs \u201cLochinvar\u201d.Interviewed by O\u2019Shea in the last two years of her life, O\u2019Brien \u2014 fragile but austere and fearsomely clear-sighted \u2014 dismisses all this as a distraction from the important things in life, notably nature. With contributors including O\u2019Brien\u2019s sons Sasha and Carlo G\u00e9bler, actor Gabriel Byrne and writers Anne Enright and Walter Mosley, this is a moving, insightful tribute to O\u2019Brien as a formidable writer and a woman of remarkable complexity.\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2606In UK cinemas from April 18<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Film myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.In her eighties, novelist Edna O\u2019Brien \u2014 who died last year aged 93 \u2014 was awarded the status of \u201cSaoi\u201d, an Irish honour meaning \u201cwise one\u201d. Her<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":279912,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-279911","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-culture"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279911"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279911\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":279913,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279911\/revisions\/279913"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}