A celebration of the independent spirit, a fascinating study of hard-learned (and earned) artistry, and a reminder that we are all mired in the utter messiness of life, Blue Road... gives the late Edna O'Brien her big-screen due and then some.
It is one of the best documentaries you'll see in 2025 and hits the genre's bullseye: leaves you wanting to know more about its subject. There'll be another rake of books to add to that list too.
Indeed, this is as good an examination of a complicated hero resisting the mindset and manacles of 20th-century Ireland as any work of fiction.
Co Clare-born O'Brien was a trailblazer who became a household name with her 1960 debut The Country Girls when, as she puts it, "literary success was a male preserve". Sure enough, all her books were banned here. Why stop there? There were burnings too.
O'Brien, who was based in London, had, like many before her, the status of both insider and outsider when it came to her home country - physically at a distance from squinting-windows psychology but, like every émigré of her era, still in the thick of it emotionally.
There is so much to pack in here. O'Brien was 93 when she died in July 2024 and director Sinéad O'Shea was still doing interviews with her until April of that year. Inevitably, the physical decline is hard to watch, but although the delivery is slower, the recollections are still sharp - an exhortation to go down swinging as time does its thing. There is also a wealth of archive footage, including visits back to Ireland and her parents - O'Brien looking like she's arrived from another dimension in fur coats and heels - and great rejoinders from TV interviews.
Narrated by Jessie Buckley from O'Brien's diaries and memoir, this film shows that you can be as tough as nails and vulnerable at the same time.
As the song says, for each a road. Make sure you travel this one in the near future.
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