Closing the Ring

Movie Poster
6.1
  • R
During the 1940s, a group of young men go off to war, leaving behind Ethel Ann, who is in love with one of them, Teddy. In modern-day Belfast, a man named Jimmy endeavors to return a ring found in the wreckage of a crashed plane. He travels to Michigan, where the grown Ethel Ann, who married another man after Teddy was killed in battle, now lives. Ethel Ann must decide whether to go with Jimmy to meet the soldier who last saw Teddy alive.
  • Avatar Picture CinemaSerf 8/30/2023 7:30:00 AM 8.4

    Richard Attenborough has assembled a good cast for this nostalgic wartime drama. In a troubles-torn Belfast, the young Wilbur (Dylan Roberts) finds a ring in a burnt out aircraft left over from WWII. His search for the owner leads him to Shirley MacLaine's "Ethel Ann", and our story slowly reveals, via a mix of current and retrospective scenarios, just what happened when and to whom. The beginning is a bit disjointed, the chopping and changing of timeframes and characters happens too soon after the film starts without us having quite enough information to follow the story easily, but once that settles down and the role of Christopher Plummer ("Jack") becomes clearer, this makes for an engaging story of loves lost and bravery. It also doesn't ignore the fact that bombs continued to fall in Belfast for some years after the end of the War too. It's a simple vehicle for the two stars, that isn't the most plausible of stories, but it has a gentle warmth that just about carries it off.