Joyce is certainly not my favorite writer. His life was spent in a tirade against the land of his birth, which he felt had betrayed him and under-appreciated him. Then, he went on to write some work that most of us think is great. His relationship with his common-law wife, Nora is the focus of this film and their tempestuous relationship provides most of the action. There can be some critique about Joyce, about film-making, about writing, direction, etc., but basically this is a story about two essentially neurotic people. Ewan McGregor brings a brooding, doubting, jealous and unsecure Joyce to the screen while Susan Lynch provides the fiery, sexy female component this relationship. And, that's that. As it has been observed and commented by other reviewers here, there's damn little about the writer found in this film. Too bad, I suppose. It's always nice to hear about how writers write what they do, but you have to be damn familiar with Joyce to make that leap to see Molly Bloom come out of Nora.
