Just one year prior to his big critical and commercial breakthrough with The Crying Game, writer/director Neil Jordan released a tiny Irish drama that slipped through the cracks, was noticed by almost no one, and has since been nearly forgotten to time. Despite all that failure, I managed to catch a screening of The Miracle in the early 1990s and fell in love with it. The film merits discovery, if you can find it. Unfortunately, doing so may be no easy task at the moment.
I’m sure this article will be passed over by most readers who’ve never heard of the film. I certainly don’t expect it to generate any web traffic from the major search engines. Nonetheless, movies like The Miracle are one of the main reasons I started this blog in the first place – not just to review the latest blockbusters (which I like as much as anyone), but also to shine some light on forgotten treasures that may have gotten lost in the shuffle throughout the home video era.
If you want to watch The Miracle today, you won’t find it on DVD or Blu-ray, much less 4K. Nor do any subscription streaming platforms carry it in their catalogs. You’ll need to hunt it down for digital rental or purchase at a limited number of outlets, and sadly in terrible quality. That it can still be viewed at all is almost a minor miracle itself.
| Title: | The Miracle |
| Year of Release: | 1991 |
| Director: | Neil Jordan |
| Watched On: | Fandango at Home (formerly Vudu) |
| Also Available On: | Amazon Prime Video (rental or purchase) |
The Miracle received very limited theatrical distribution back in 1991, especially in the United States. I came across it at an art theater running a print for a couple days in the wake of The Crying Game‘s success. If I recall the details correctly, I probably could have counted the number of other viewers in the theater with me on one hand.
Aside from its Irish backdrop, the film isn’t much like The Crying Game in any respect. The story has no particular political overtones, of either a national or sexual nature. While the movie doesn’t necessarily feel out of place with Jordan’s other work, previous or later, it’s one of his smallest, most unassuming productions.
In essence, The Miracle is a delicate character drama about a pair of bored teenagers wasting away the summer in their small coastal hometown outside Dublin. Jimmy (Niall Byrne) and Rose (Lorraine Pilkington) may occasionally tease each other about dating, but aren’t actually romantically involved. They’ve been friends so long the idea of adding love or sex into the equation seems ridiculous. Instead, they spend their days hanging out around town, watching the locals go about their everyday business, and inventing elaborate stories about the people they observe – tales of unrequited love, forbidden passions, or dark secrets from the past.
Most of this is nonsense, but it keeps them occupied. Rose, especially, has a knack for stringing words together and could become a writer someday if she ever built up the ambition. Jimmy’s not too bad at it either, but seems destined to follow his father’s footsteps and become a small-time musician playing saxophone at weddings and dance halls for senior citizens. Like most teenage boys, he often resents his father (Donal McCann) even as he actively grows up to be like him.
One day, while milling around the train station watching tourists for fresh story material, Jimmy and Rose fixate on a blonde American stranger named Renee (Beverly D’Angelo). They’re drawn toward her exotic beauty (they believe her to be French, until she actually speaks to them), and follow her around for a bit, even going so far as to snoop through her purse when she goes swimming at the beach. Renee catches them, and is mostly amused at their harmless mischief.
Rose eventually loses interest and drifts into a misbegotten romance with another boy her age, but Jimmy remains obsessed with Renee. He spies on her daily, and regularly intrudes into her activities, trying to force himself into her life. He’s clearly infatuated, and Renee is flattered at first, but she backs off quickly as she learns more about him. However, she can’t draw completely away from Jimmy, for reasons that he misinterprets, perhaps willingly so.
No, this isn’t a thriller about a psycho stalker. Jimmy is just a teenage boy in love with a woman too old for him. Renee has conflicted feelings about how to interact or deal with him. The two share a secret connection that should be obvious to viewers fairly early in the movie. Not at all intended as a shocking plot twist reveal, the turn is confirmed within the first half-hour and informs our understanding of Renee’s actions and behavior.
The story is a tragedy, although a gentle one. Its climax is understated, tempered by a deliberate feeling of inevitability. As both writer and director, Neil Jordan obviously has great affection for these characters. They’re all well-drawn, three-dimensional human beings. The film may not have much for big dramatic fireworks, but it’s loaded with charm and local color in the Irish setting.
The Miracle is a lovely little movie about growing up, friendship, first love, misplaced feelings, and the easily-strained tension of family relationships. Although obviously never destined for huge box office success, it deserved better than a quick banishment into obscurity.
Video Streaming
After its brief run in theaters, The Miracle received a home video release on VHS through the Miramax label. I even acquired a copy on Laserdisc, but the film never made its way to DVD or any modern physical media formats.
For this viewing, I pulled out the old Laserdisc and was able to get my LD player reconnected and working again. (I use it quite infrequently these days, and the last time I tried it behaved very flakily.) However, before I committed to anything, I did another search and found the movie available for digital rental or purchase on Amazon Prime Video and Fandango at Home (formerly Vudu). Amazon lists its copy as standard-definition, while Fandango very misleading calls its copy “HDX” (usually that platform’s term for 1080p high-definition). Skeptical that the movie had ever actually been remastered in HD, I took a risk and rented from Fandango.
As I fully expected, the so-called HDX on Fandango is actually upconverted from standard-def, clearly the same master that originated from VHS and Laserdisc. It looks awful, even in those terms. (Miramax always had a lousy track record for video quality.) The movie was transferred in a 4:3 aspect ratio, mostly open-matte from the theatrical 1.85:1, but also cropped a little on the sides. I tried to mask the picture down to 16:9 on my projection screen, but the framing was much too tight and some credit text got cropped. I eventually compromised on a 1.66:1 matting, which works reasonably well.
Beyond the aspect ratio, the SD image is extremely soft and fuzzy, scanned from a film element covered in dirt, speckles, scratches, and hair. The credit text and other fine details (what few exist) are marred by jaggies. Gate weave is pronounced, causing the entire picture to wobble around the screen during the credits and other static shots. Colors are dull and contrast is milky. Thick, ugly edge enhancement halos intrude regularly. Just about anything that could go wrong with a video transfer did go wrong here.
The Dolby Digital 2.0 audio is equally crappy. The soundtrack is so weak I had to crank my volume 15 dB louder than normal just to hear the dialogue. Doing so, the track is very thin and hissy.
The poor video and audio are serious detriments when trying to get involved in the story. I found this viewing mostly frustrating.
For comparison, I put in the Laserdisc for a few minutes. That led me down a rabbit hole of trying to recalibrate all my player and display settings for the best playback quality. My conclusion is that the LD ultimately doesn’t look much better than the digital copy, but also doesn’t look any worse. If anything, the analog picture is slightly (very slightly) more stable and isn’t ridden with digital compression artifacts. Make no mistake, however, that the underlying video transfer is still very poor.
On the other hand, in the Laserdisc’s favor, its PCM digital audio is significantly better than the streaming version. For that alone, I’d default to this copy in the future. Still, the movie is in dire need of a modern film scan and remaster.
Related
- Neil Jordan
- Beverly D’Angelo
- Thematically Similar
The Video File Blog 
I found a dvd of The Miracle in a thrift store today. It was released here in Australia in 2008. Region 0 and widescreen though not anamorphic so you do need to use the zoom on your tv to make it fit. Didn’t look too bad upscaled on my 4K player. Can be found on eBay. Thought you would like to know.
LikeLiked by 1 person