There are marvelous images, and truly the cinematography is the best thing in the film. Rea is also great as Leopold Bloom, while ball and O'Conor also have moments of brilliance- including Molly Bloom's closing soliloquy- the last chapter in the book- which the filmmaker wisely opens and closes the film with, so that Molly is indelibly stamped in the viewer's mind while most of the rest of the film explores Leopold and Dedalus...
The cast, mostly lesser-known (at least to me) Irish actors, is wonderful, especially Angeline Ball as Molly Bloom. Her soliloquy is worth the price of admission, and probably contributed to her winning the IFTA Best Actress award for her portrayal.
Anyone who still includes James Joyce's Ulysses among the books they teach should have this DVD. Not only is it amazingly helpful to see the work portrayed so that you understand the way scenes are a mix of memory, reflection, and real-time interchange among characters, but the extras on the DVD, such as the 'scenes' labeled according to their corresponding segments, such as Circe, Ithaca, etc., offer a fabulous study aid.
Bloom is bound to polarize audiences into those who believe Joyce's great novel ULYSSES should never be tampered with and those who welcome revisiting the glories of the story of one day (June 16, 1904) in the lives of three main characters in the streets and surroundings of Dublin, Ireland. For this viewer this adaptation by Sean Walsh for the screen works on almost every level. Walsh was brave indeed to make the internal dialogues of these important and endlessly interesting characters visual, and how he succeeded will be, happily, up to the interpretation of the viewer.
