Parky At the Pictures (9/10/2026)

(Reviews of The Lost Children of Tuam; and The Yellow Tie)

THE LOST CHILDREN OF TUAM.

It's noticeable that previous films about Ireland's notorious Mother and Baby Homes have been directed by outsiders like Scot Peter Mullan (The Magdalene Sisters, 2002), Englishman Stephen Frears (Philomena, 2013), and Belgian Tim Melants (Small Things Like These, 2024). Adapted from Dan Barry's 2017 New York Times article, The Lost Children of Tuam has, however, been directed by Dubliner Frank Berry, whose previous credits include the documentary, Ballymun Lullaby (2011), and the social-realist dramas, I Used to Live Here (2014), Michael Inside (2017), and Aisha (2022).

In 2010, Catherine Corless (Monica Dolan) runs a dairy farm in Tuam, County Galway with her husband, Aidan (Andrew Bennett). Seeking an outlet, she enrols in a local history class and tutor Graham (Denis Conway) approves of her choice to investigate St Mary's, a Mother and Baby Home that was run by the Bon Secours Sisters between 1925-61.

As her own mother had been illegitimate and had been passed around foster families and Catherine feels guilty about teasing Baby Home kids at school by offering them stones in sweet wrappers, she becomes immersed in the project. Unable to find much material in the town library, she becomes suspicious when neither the order nor the council claims to have any records pertaining to the home's operation.

Door-to-door enquiries lead her to Grace Dunne (Sheila Flitton), who insists that the nuns had worked very hard in what were very different times. She reveals that a lay worker had recorded tapes about her experiences, while friends mention over coffee about bones being found in the mid-1970s near the grotto that had been set into the last remaining wall of the demolished home. Catherine meets the two men who had stumbled across the relics as boys and they remember that the police had insisted that they dated to the 1840s Famine (when the premises had been a workhouse), although they had been sure that they had something to do with St Mary's.

Consulting old maps, Catherine discovers that the chamber the boys fell into was part of a septic tank that had been in use until 1937. This means that the bones couldn't pre-date St Mary's, while a search through death certificates for the 26 years that the Bon Secours had been in charge reveals that around 200 children had been registered, although there is no record of any burial sites.

Graham is so impressed by her essay that he urges her to publish it and, in 2012, she mails copies of it to the archbishop and other interested parties in the hope of sparking a response to what she considers an establishment cover-up of systemic neglect and illegality. When the registry hands her evidence that 798 children from Tuam had been certified, Catherine renews her search and finds a newspaper advert from 1932 asking for coffin makers to work at the home. In seeking where they could have been buried, she concludes that they are under a larger-than-average playground on an estate that had been built on the St Mary's site. Aidan is worried that the investigation will take its toll on his wife's fragile mental health (as she had previously had electro-shock therapy), but she insists she has to make sure her findings are known.

Following an interview with the local paper, Catherine is visited by P.J. Haverty (Ian McElhinney), whose mother had tried for four years to claim him from the home. Others come to the farmhouse (seen sitting at the kitchen table in a silent montage) and Catherine finally receives the tapes giving details of how pregnant women were forced to work during their stay and were declared `unfit mothers' so that they could be separated from their infants. She builds a model of St Mary's (which is described as `a house of tears' on the tapes) and shows it to the survivors, who learn that doctors rarely attended births, while the nuns had little to do with the children.

When a national paper carries the story on the front page in May 2014, Catherine is criticised by some for bringing shame on Tuam. But news outlets around the world latch on to the scandal and Aidan persuades his wife to seize the moment and speak to reporters. Sisters Bridget (Ruth McCabe) and Joan (Deirdre Dunlea) ask to meet in Galway, but they only want to shame Catherine into silence. A government enquiry is launched and the playground is excavated in November 2016. Proof that the remains are those of young children follows shortly afterwards and Catherine is given a standing ovation by the audience at The Late Late Show.

In August 2018, Catherine rejected an invitation to meet Pope Francis in Dublin. Instead, the joined a silent walk to the burial site that concluded with the names of the 798 victims being read aloud. The film ends with a drone shot down on the candles forming circular pattens before a caption explains that a Commission of Investigation concluded that over 9000 children had died in 18 Irish Mother and Baby Homes between 1922-98. Apologies to the victims and survivors were issued in January 2021 by the Bon Secours Sisters, Galway County Council, and the Irish State. But another four years had to elapse before the excavation could begin prior to the respectful burial that the children had long been denied.

Catherine Corless has previously appeared in two documentaries, Tanya Stephan's The Missing Children (2021) and Margo Harkin's Stolen (2023), which have since been followed by Aoife Kelleher's Testimony (2025). But this shocking, saddening story is likely to reach its widest audience with this carefully made drama, which has been co-produced by Liam Neeson. Herself a Catholic, Monica Dolan is outstanding as the dogged amateur historian who uncovered truths that shamed a nation and a faith. Whether she's feeding cows, perusing texts, or summoning the courage to step into the limelight to publicise her cause, she conveys the courage and integrity that characterised Corless's campaign.

We learn less than most would like about her backstory and personality, although Frank Berry and scenarist Rebecca Lenkiewicz would no doubt argue that the action is dotted with details that don't distracting from the central theme. At times, the procedural nature of the investigation can make this feel like a teleplay in scope and tone. But it's made clear that Corless's research and resourcefulness were quite remarkable, given her academic inexperience and the reluctance of so many bodies to co-operate with her.

Faces and documents figure prominently in Kate McCullough's imagery, although Berry overuses slow travelling shots along lines of people either passing a stone while voting for exhumation or reciting names at a candlelight vigil. Some of the fragmentary flashbacks integrated by editors Colin Campbell and Nathan Nugent also feel a little laboured, while Hannah Peel's score comes close to shaping the viewer's emotional response in the final stages. But this is a crime it's difficult to revisit dispassionately and Berry maintains the balance between condemning an unspeakable evil and lauding the diligence required to uncover it.

THE YELLOW TIE.

It's not often that a son directs a biopic of their father. There have been a few documentary studies, but Mario Van Peebles has long stood alone in profiling (and portraying) his film-making father, Melvin, in Baadasssss! (2004). Now, however, Sergiu Celibidache has made The Yellow Tie about his Romanian conductor father, Sergiu Celibidache, who famously refused to allow any of his musical performances to be recorded.

Parallel storylines show the young Sergiu Celibidache (Andrei Isarescu) being belt-thrashed by his soldier father, Demostene (Sean Bean), for being more interested in the brass band playing at a 1920s investiture than in the medal being presented. Demostene wants his son to become prime minister of Romania and gives him the yellow tie he had bought on the day he was born after he excels in his studies. However, he demands its return when Sergiu (Ewan Horrocks) announces that he is not going to attend university because he wants to be a composer.

In the late 1980s, Sergiu (John Malkovich) berates the Japanese delegation behind his forthcoming tour for inserting a digital recording clause in the contract. Wife Ioana (Miranda Richardson) knows to humour him, but aspiring film-maker son, Miki (Charlie Rowe), can't resist asking questions from behind his camera.

Arriving in Bucharest, Sergiu (Ben Schnetzer) is rescued from a park bench by barmaid Ortancia (Tamzin Merchant), who puts him up in her rooms to compose while she is being pawed by customers. He plays jazz at the bar and accompanies young girls during their ballet lessons, while writing to reassure his mother that he's leading a respectable life.

In 1935, he is invited to Berlin to study with Heinz Tiessen (Robert Dölle), who persuades him that his talent lies in conducting rather than composing. Sergiu gets into the Conservatory, where he is considered arrogant by his tutors and classmates. With his long hair, he is also taunted by soldiers, with one officer making him drop his trousers to check he's not been circumcised. Tiessen urges him not to despair because his talent needs to be shared with the world. But when Miki plays his father a bootleg CD of him conducting in Munich in 1982, Sergiu loses his temper because he thinks music should only be heard live as recording fails to capture the essence and sense of occasion.

Wounded in the head during an air raid in 1945, Sergiu seizes his opportunity at an audition for the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra with his interpretation of Igor Stravinsky's `The Firebird'. However, he questions the calibre of the musicians and drives a record label boss mad in London with his perfectionism. Tiessen introduces him to Martin Steinke (Anton Lesser), who teaches him about Zen Buddhism and helps him hear the silence between the notes. Rather than calming down, however, Sergiu becomes more demanding and is fired.

Hitting a low in Peru in 1955, he makes such an impression on Ioana (Kate Phillips) with Maurice Ravel's `Boléro' in Buenos Aires that he finds his soulmate. She reminds him that she had been the clumsy girl in the ballet class he had played for years earlier. Back in Europe, the press prey on his perfectionism and confidence in his own vision to paint him as an eccentric genius. Now married to Ioana, he insists on going behind the Iron Curtain to play in Romania. She is worried the Securitate will detain him, but he feels detached from his father and siblings. As a Buddhist, he uses fond memories of his skating with his father when he meditates. After his triumphant homecoming, however, he learns from sister Sonia (Olivia Popica) that their father had died three days ago. She hands him a parcel he had left for him, but he only opens it years later to discover that Demostene had kept a scrapbook of his career and he finds the yellow tie pressed between the back cover.

Closing captions reveal that Sergiu returned to Berlin after a 37-year absence for a concert to celebrate reunification and the collapse of Communism. He died four years later at the age of 84 and Miki released some concert recordings on CD, which all bore a note saying that this was a souvenir of a treasured moment, but not music.

Inset footage of Celibidache conducting as a younger and older man runs with the credit crawl and confirms that both John Malkovich and Ben Schnetzer have nailed his exuberant podium style, with the help of conducting coach Konrad von Abel, who was Celibidache's artistic assistant when he was with the Munich Philharmonic between 1986-96.

[ANALYSIS TO COME]