Circle Of Friends
Pearl, 9.30pm
Minnie Driver did a brave thing to secure the leading role in Circle Of Friends, her first movie: she gained 13 kilograms. For the English actress, it was brains, personality and her smile rather than the traditional sleek body expected of a Hollywood star, that launched her as one of the most exciting actresses to emerge in the 1990s.
It all started with Pat O'Connor's adaptation of Maeve Binchy's novel Circle Of Friends, in which Driver plays a naive Irish student from a simple Catholic family, opposite the hunky American Chris O'Donnell (above), of wealthy Protestant descent, and alongside her prettier but less sparkling friends.
Religious conflict is what we expect of an Irish movie. But against this backdrop, Driver's experience of first love and the breaking with family tradition and expectations is still intelligently told. The film is set in the 1950s, when the moral issues and family pressures were more acute than today, even in Catholic Ireland. 'Which is it to be?' a priest asks young women in a sermon, the moral burden resting firmly on their shoulders. 'Will your body be a garden for Jesus, or a vessel of sin?' Driver's Benny is intelligent enough to make her own decision (1995).
It Happened At The World's Fair
TCM, 9pm
