Four Letters of Love Tickets

Starring: Pierce Brosnan, Helena Bonham Carter, Gabriel Byrne, Ann Skelly and Fionn O'Shea

Directed by: Polly Steele

Written by: Niall Williams

Run time: 105 minutes

Four Letters of Love

Nicholas and Isabel are made for each other but they've never met. Nicholas is an only child who has grown up in a quiet, grey Dublin household under a distant father. Isabel lives on an island off the Western coast, in a close-knit family with her parents, Muiris and Margaret, and her brother Seanie. There's no reason they would ever meet, until fate intervenes in their lives.

One day Nicholas's father, William, comes home from the office and tells his shellshocked family that he has been instructed by God to paint and that he's quitting his civil service job. Meanwhile, in the West of Ireland, Isabel's brother collapses inexplicably when a game gets out of hand and is left in a state of mute paralysis, for which Isabel blames herself. With a heavy heart, she departs for the mainland to continue her education at a convent school, but chafes at its strictures. While truanting, she meets Peader, a local man who runs a tweed shop but longs to play music, and romance blossoms.

In Dublin, William is dissatisfied with his paintings and departs mysteriously for the West of Ireland, leaving Nicholas and his mother, Bette, to fend for themselves. The strain is too much for Bette, and when William does eventually return, he finds her dead in their bedroom. To Nicholas's angry incomprehension, even after everything that's happened his father still wants to return to the West to paint. Nicholas decides to follow him.

When Isabel decides to return to the island to see her family, fate conspires to place her on the same bus as Nicholas and William. And yet they still do not meet beyond a shared glance " Isabel goes to catch her ferry, and Nicholas is too preoccupied with trailing his father, fearful about his intentions. When William arrives at the coast, Nicholas loses sight of him. Convinced that he has walked into the ocean, Nicholas plunges in, only to end up being rescued himself by his father. As father and son bond in the aftermath, on the island Isabel reconnects with her family. Her father had been creatively blocked after Seanie's accident, but he wakes suddenly with a fully-formed poem. The same morning, Nicholas watches his father paint Isabel's island and starts to understand this strange calling. But fate's path is not smooth: all but one of the paintings is destroyed in an accident, leaving William bereft, and when Isabel returns to the mainland, she is expelled, sending her headlong into a relationship with Peader.

Nicholas and William return to Dublin, where William now seems lost. Nicholas is bewildered when he gives away the final painting to Mr. Flannery, a former colleague, to serve as a prize in a poetry competition. When Nicholas is at school, a fire starts in the family home claiming William's life. Alone in the world, Nicholas is taken in by Mr. Flannery. Isabel also struggles, disliked by Peader's mother, and aware of her own parents' concerns about the relationship. But after an argument, Peader suddenly proposes to her and Isabel accepts. In the same moment, as Nicholas despairingly watches the snow fall in Dublin, he encounters the ghost of his father. His message: find the last painting. With a new purpose, Nicholas asks Mr. Flannery what happened to it and discovers it was won by a schoolmaster on an island in the West, Isabel's father.

On the day of Isabel's wedding, Nicholas reaches the island. He finds Margaret at the cottage, who leaves him with Seanie to go and fetch Muiris from the reception. In the hush, Seanie stirs and speaks for the first time since his accident. Muiris and Margaret return to find their son miraculously recovered and invite Nicholas to stay with them. Isabel soon arrives and, caught up in the miracle, tells Peader she will join him on the mainland later.

Nicholas and Isabel recognise each other from the bus. Both seem aware of fate looming over them. Isabel had already asked for a sign that she shouldn't marry Peader " did it come too late?

It's only when Isabel returns to the mainland that Nicholas realises he cannot deny his feelings and must write to her, pouring his heart into a letter. Margaret senses danger and intercepts it at the post office, but no sooner than she's burned it, Nicholas starts a second letter. This one she tears to pieces, only to be given a third letter that simply reads 'LOVE'.

Margaret tries to enter Nicholas's room and finds the door stopped by a spectral presence. It's only now, hearing Nicholas's mutterings as he writes a fourth letter, that she suddenly remembers her husband's poem and rushes to fetch it. She reads it to Nicholas " "I will write you four letters of love / And you will come." Nicholas immediately races to the shore, where Isabel is arriving by boat. As her family appear, and watched over by the presence of William and Bette, at last, they kiss.

Four Letters of Love in cinemas 24 July