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The Wind That Shakes the Barley Movie Review

The Wind That Shakes the Barley is a 2006 Irish historical film directed by Ken Loach and starring Cillian Murphy. It’s another overrated Loach picture.

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“It’s easy to know what you are against,

but quite another to know what you are for“

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The movie depicts both the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War, both happening in the early twenties. As such, it is too heavy and burdensome. By that, I mean that it tries to cover a lot of ground for a two-hour movie and it mostly fails at rousing the interest of the audiences. It’s just too factual and too ambitious for its own sake.

Two brothers fight side-by-side against the British forces for Ireland’s independence. When a treaty is negotiated, civil war erupts and the brothers find themselves on opposing sides. The personal side of this story is where the movie makes the biggest impact, especially in its very moving, memorable finale.

But other than that, it was again too factual as most Ken Loach movies are. I simply do not care for this director’s output and he continues to bore me personally. His movies are too much like documentaries and not cinematic enough. This one also lacks those cinematic qualities and is never a true historical spectacle as it tries to emulate.

The Wind That Shakes the Barley does benefit from good acting across the board with Cillian Murphy being particularly strong, but all of the others are fine as well. The characterization is actually solid and the drama and conflicts between the characters are well realized, but again the emotional investment was lacking in my opinion. The movie is too cold and also way too brutal for its own sake.

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As for its technical aspects, they are serviceable but far from great. The movie looks and sounds good, but its cinematography and score are really nothing special and of course the direction from Loach is expectedly problematic. Many scenes here make an impact, especially those heartbreaking moments, but overall the movie was too brutal and it tried to tackle way too many details and events that it crumbled beneath all of that pressure.