Heartbreakingly beautiful.

Rosie brings all the feels, in this film from Paddy Breathnach. Featuring a screenplay from Roddy Doyle, who is arguably one of Ireland’s best writers, and who has always been able to clearly voice the working class hardships, and joys, this film strikes devastatingly close to home.

In this day and age so many of us seem to be one pay cheque from being out on the streets. We struggle to get by, to make ends meet, get our side hustles, maximize any benefits that may be afforded to us, and run up our cards just to keep our heads above water. Throw in predatory real estate companies, and landlords, you have a mixture for a disaster.

A disaster that seems to be growing in epic proportions. And that is where we join Rosie, brought to vibrant life, by a perfectly on point performance by Sarah Greene. Here is a woman who has lost her home, who with her husband John Paul (Moe Dunford), is struggling to find not only a permanent new home, but just somewhere for the night.

With her four children in tow, Rosie spends her days working her way through a list of numbers of hotels that may be able to put them up for the night, thanks to the Dublin City Council Credit. It would be a place to wash-up, sleep in a bed, and escape the confines of their car, which is packed to overflowing with the belongings they were able to take from their home.

Greene walks a fine line (trapped in the car by the camera’s framing), the viewer has to see how in pain she is, and how much of that she hides from her children, and even her husband (as he does her) so that she can put the best face on it, until, possibly, something, anything, comes along.

This sense of pride, something both she and John Paul share, and no doubt many in the same situation do as well, keeps them from revealing the truth to employers, former neighbours, their children’s teachers. Could these people help? You don’t know, but their pride keeps them from finding out, even as they hold their family together.

The love this family shares is strong. Rosie and John Paul face the reality of their existence every moment, fighting to make things better for their family with everything they have, and wondering if they will ever find a place to call their own again.

While not the usual escapist fare that most of us would head to the theatre to see, it’s an emotionally involving piece that will require your hankies, and features a beautiful performance by Sarah Greene.

Rosie opens on January 31st at the Carlton here in downtown Toronto and in select theatres across Canada.