With five-star lighting camerman O'Sullivan turned director and ten-star Bruno De Keyzer directing photography, December Bride, set in a remote corner of Northern Ireland, looks ravishingly beautiful in the finest tradition of such Channel 4 productions. Unfortunately, almost everything else about it is just as reminiscent of a made-for-TV project.
Not that the story is without interest: events unfold in a close-knit Presbyterian community where young Sarah (Reeves) and her mother (Bruce) keep house for two farmer brothers (McCann, giving his usual wonderful performance, and Hinds). The girl and the two young men resolutely refuse to attend the church and mother exits, leaving Sarah and the men to a full-blooded ménage à trois with pregnancy the consequence. That these events, spanning some 20 years, happen at the turn of the century gives context to the film's portrait of an independent-minded and rebellious young woman, competently played by Reeves, here making her feature debut.