Tomas is a young orphan who is rescued from a drab church orphanage in Ireland by a 'rainbow' in the form of Maire (Connie Neilsen) who takes him to live with her and her husband on a small island of the coast of Ireland with a view to the couple adopting him permanently.We are spared the most of cruelties that Tomas must have suffered in the orphanage (this film steers completely clear of the clerical abuses suffered by many children in Ireland's church-run institutions of the period).If Maire is a rainbow to Tomas, her husband Alec (Aidan Quinn), a decent but surly man, is a storm cloud. He doesn't warm to the boy, as Tomas falls short of his expectations. Throughout the film, chinks of light shine through the cloud as it seems Alec is warming to Tomas, but the cloud soon moves over again...There are many emotional moments in the film, from the outset. Overall, it works very well, and ends on a high note, though there is much heart- wrenching in between. Slightly off-putting for me was Tomas' accent, which sounds Scottish rather than Irish, as well as my perception that the emerging acting talents of the young John Bell (Tomas) didn't seem quite capable of delivering with as much naturalness as I would have expected.A moving and compelling film.

If you're looking for a feel good film, "A Shine of Rainbows" (2009) maybe right up your alley. Pop the lid off the Midol, swallow a couple of capsules, put on your stretchy sweat pants allowing room for the bloat, dig out the heating pad, lay on the couch and pull up "A Shine of Rainbows" on your Instant Queue playlist on Netflix and let the tears roll. It's a real feel-good experience. (Hopefully, your significant other won't view it as another one of your bawling shows).Maire O'Donnell (Connie Nielson) is a happy go-lucky, colorful, free spirited woman who adopts ten-year-old Tomas from an orphanage, and takes him to her home on Corrie Island, off the coast of Ireland. Once Tomas arrives, he must learn to adapt to his surroundings on the island, learn to make friends with children his age regardless of his inability to speak without stuttering, and win the heart of Maire's husband, Alec (Aidan Quinn) in order to stay on the island. Alec silently disapproves of Tomas' timidness and stutter, which causes friction between Maire and Alec.Maire's positive, vibrant, and warm personality teaches Tomas everything that he needs to know lies within himself--all he has to do search within. When tragedy strikes, Tomas digs deep to find solace with nature and with himself. Tomas is convinced that love exists when he experiences the beauty of an exploded rainbow and the magic that it holds."A Shine of Rainbows won" the Heartland Film Festival Award. The message in "A Shine of Rainbows" is powerfully intoxicating, devastatingly sad, and realistically rewarding displaying array of hope in the most tragic of circumstances. This film touches the heart inside out, leaving the viewer with a trail of tears and a deeper meaning about the magic of love.

This is a feel good movie if ever I had to describe one. Yep, it will leave you with a warm and fuzzy feeling at the end and might even make you more cordial towards others for a day or so. If this sounds way different than other reviews of this movie, it's not because I'm being cynical or trying to be funny; I'm not. This movie type requires a building of good feeling followed by a sudden very sad tragic event so that the redeeming third phase can effectively lift your spirit through a positive 'good can come from bad situation'; it's classic and it's a tried and true formula.The movie is as close to a fairytale as a definitively not fairytale can be. Connie Nielsen is the best looking adoptive mother you'll ever see and plays an ideal loving wife. I was envious of Aidan Quinn who plays Nielsen's husband, but only for a while because, hey, it's just a movie. So you get that Nielsen is charming as hell. Read the storyline and you'll get an idea of what you can potentially be watching, assuming you haven't yet seen the flick. Luckily, Nielsen's character dies before the abundance of sweetness she spreads turns you into a diabetic. Yea, that bit is a little cynical and perhaps funny to some. Don't get me wrong, I love Nielsen as an overly optimist character because it's just what the young boy she's adopted needed, unfortunately it renders the middle of the movie utterly predictable; as previously commented, she dies. This may sound odd but her heart of gold character in this movie made me have a flashback moment to another character, very nice contrast, she played in "Devil's Advocate". Sorry about that; I write it like I feel it.The end of the movie is pretty much predictable but you'll watch it anyway to see Quinn's smile one time before the credits start rolling; the true reason you will is because you will have come to the realisation, by then, that it's a good movie well acted. The part of the movie that, to me, makes it stand out from other movies with more or less similar story lines is that the adoptive boy, very well played by John Bell, deals with the death of his adoptive mom not like what movies are suppose to show but like the character would react if he was real. That grieving period for the boy is not a quickie scene or two but full part of the movie; it is at the core of the movie's message and it required Bell to do some acting you won't see too many actors his age deliver (best I've seen). If you need to get back in the good graces of your wife or girlfriend, or if you just need a girlfriend to warm up to you a little by showing your sensitive side, bring her to see this movie or rent it for the occasion; telling her it was depressing or boring would be a very bad idea. Resist speaking; take out the tissues and snuggle up close.

During a previewed screening of this film the only shine throughout the whole movie was that of the light that burst through the door as I opened it mid-way the films screening as I left the theater. The film started with a boy in an orphanage and we as viewers are given the impression that he is unhappy; like anyone in an orphanage is. He is then adopted by a woman and taken to her home on an island off the Irish Sea. The rest of what I saw of the film is complete dribble and carries no interesting plot development. Aidan Quinn plays the husband and foster father to this boy. He is bitter and seems to dislike the boy. The mother is chipper and excited for the boy, although we find out that she has medical issues that will enviably lead to her death. This tear-jerking Irish film gets two-thumbs down! It is boring and poorly acted. I feel more pain and sadness for the viewers of this film than the characters in it.