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Song for a Raggy Boy

2003

Aisling Walsh

Aidan Quinn, Iain Glen, Dudley Sutton, Marc Warren ...

7.0

4,749

Drama "Song for a Raggy Boy" is based on the true story of a single teacher's courage to stand up against an untouchable prefect's sadistic disciplinary regime and other abuse in a Catholic Reformatory and Industrial School in 1939 Ireland.

	Media	Author	Review
		David Rooney Variety	"An absorbing, affecting drama (...) Quinn gives a warm, intelligent performance"
		Peter Bradshaw The Guardian	"It's a formula beloved (...) but here given a new miserabilist anti-clerical spin and imbued with Hollywood-ised cliche of goodies and baddies. And the sugar-rush happy ending is just a joke."
		David Parkinson Radio Times	"Walsh never quite strikes the right balance between pitiless cruelty and empathic compassion (…) Rating: ★★ (out of 5)"
		William Thomas Empire	"[It] isn't as deeply affecting as Mullan's 'The Magdalene Sisters', but performances from its adult leads never flinch from the truth (…) Rating: ★★★ (out of 5)"
		Caroline Hennessy RTÉ	"It's a tough film to watch but 'Song for a Raggy Boy' is a timely and important reminder of the tortures that thousands of Irish children suffered in similar institutions (…) Rating: ★★★ (out of 5)"
		entertainment.ie	"Some scenes border on the exploitive, but the most disturbing misstep is the attitude adopted towards one character in the film's climax."
		Matthew Leyland BBC	"[Quinn] is the best he's been in yonks, conveying warmth, integrity and affecting sorrow. Even so, it's Glen who haunts the memory most (…) Rating: ★★★ (out of 5)"

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