General News
Meropi Kyriacou Honored as TNH Educator of the Year
NEW YORK – Meropi Kyriacou, the new Principal of The Cathedral School in Manhattan, was honored as The National Herald’s Educator of the Year.
Phyllida Lloyd's "Herself," an Irish drama of spousal abuse set against Dublin's housing crisis, has some narrative weak spots but its foundation of resilience and heart is strong.
Previous forays into film by Lloyd, a veteran theater director, have been more elaborate, starrier affairs ("Mamma Mia!" "The Iron Lady"). But "Herself" is a smaller, neo-realistic and often stirring story about Sandra (Clare Dunne, who co-wrote the script with Malcolm Campbell), a mother of two daughters (Molly McCann, Ruby Rose O'Hara) and the wife of a monstrous brute, Gary (Ian Lloyd Anderson).
Some of the major beats in "Herself" verge on cliché but everything in between rings true thanks to Dunne's steadfast performance and the film's delicate sense of humanity. The film begins almost immediately with the ruthless beating of Sandra by Gary. It's an anguishing scene, of course, though one, given its blunt timing in the film, divorced from any connection to the characters. Still, Lloyd from the start keeps the camera's focus on the connection between Sandra and her young girls, whom she sends running as soon as Gary comes home.
The bond between Sandra and daughters — both of whom are far more natural than most children seen in movies — is the abiding through line of "Herself," as is Sandra's determination to find a safe home for her children. Housing and homelessness has been a problem in Ireland in recent years, and it's not uncommon for those needing public housing to be put up in hotels for months or even years. When Sandra approaches the housing authority, which places her in a hotel, "Herself" verges on the kind of social realism Ken Loach specializes in. Sandra comes up with a novel pitch: If she builds her own house from a kit costing about $50,000, she'll actually cost the government less money.
Sandra, a waitress at a pub, finds an unlikely benefactor in a physician she helps care for (a very good Harriet Walter) who offers a backyard as a plot. Through pluck and community, Sandra assembles a small, improvising crew of helpers, led by a reluctant but kindly contractor named Aido (Conleth Hill, also very fine). A warm spirit of neighborly goodwill grows as everyone pitches in, which Aido attributes to the Irish the old Irish term of "meitheal."
That may sound like a feel-good, made-for-the-movies tale, and "Herself" does indeed conjure an air of fable. But the film, earthy and sober, refuses to be carried aloft by sentiment, instead navigating a difficult and painful path toward self-preservation and renewal.
"Herself," an Amazon Studios release out Friday on Amazon Prime Video, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America for language and some domestic violence. Running time: 97 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.
NEW YORK – Meropi Kyriacou, the new Principal of The Cathedral School in Manhattan, was honored as The National Herald’s Educator of the Year.
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza (AP) — An international team of doctors visiting a hospital in central Gaza was prepared for the worst.
ATHENS - The tragedy of the Tempi train collision is a much greater issue than an opportunity for parties to table a motion of censure against the government, but the opposition parties used it anyway "to turn society's pain into a tool to strike at the government and me personally," Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Thursday night in parliament.
ATHENS - PASOK-KINAL leader Nikos Androulakis, speaking at the Hellenic Parliament on Thursday, emphasized that there is "an established belief among the Greek people" that the government "operates as a well-oiled machine of corruption, cover-up, and propaganda.
ATHENS — Greece’s center-right government survived a motion of no-confidence late Thursday that was brought by opposition parties over its handling of the country’s deadliest rail disaster a year ago.
ASTORIA – Greek Minister of the Interior Niki Kerameus offered an informative presentation on postal voting in the upcoming European Union elections for Greek citizens in a well-attended event held at the St.