Being in a theater for three hours, however, involves all sorts of discomfort. And I know what half of you are thinking right now: "Oh, poor Frank McCourt suffers his whole life, and you can't give his story a few hours of your time?" First of all, no. Second of all, Frank spent his entire life trying to get out of Limerick, so why shouldn't I want to get out of the theater?

Director Alan ("Evita") Parker is so obsessed with making this thing look bleak and depressing that he forgets that audiences need someone with whom they can empathize. The obvious choice here is Mrs. McCourt (Emily Watson), who squeezes out a whole passel of Irish children only to watch three of them die. After the third one goes, you sort of expect some kind of bagpipe rendition of "Gloria" or something, but Parker is having none of that. Mrs. McCourt just mopes and occasionally expresses some anger at her no-good husband, Malachy (Robert Carlyle).

Not only is Malachy no good, but he's Protestant to boot. Highlighting his no-goodness is the fact that he buys booze with his unemployment check, which leaves his wife and children starving. Hell, they had him outnumbered. Perhaps they should have whipped themselves up a tasty batch of Alcoholic Papa sausage. If you know anything about the story, you know that Frank goes to America. This is the story's penultimate moment, and certainly nobody is jumping up and down for joy by then. Like Frank, most people will simply think, "Thank God that's over."