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Cal - the novel

The worse conditions are the better the movie that can be made from them. That's what enables CAL, a story of love and killings in Northern Ireland, to become a profoundly moving treatment of the country's current "troubles".
A picture of this quality honors the country and people that make it.
Archer Winsten in The New York Post.

'Cal' the official Irish Entry for the main competition at the Cannes Film Festival, was given one of the warmest receptions of any film yet seen here this year when it received its worl premiere in Cannes yesterday. Prolonged applause and cheers followed the screening of the film… Early critical response, at least from the leading British critics at the festival, seems to have been almost universally favourable.
From Ray Comiskey of the Irish Times , in Cannes.

[Cal] is in fact an excellent adaptation by Bernard MacLaverty of his own sinewy novella, a book that belongs with the best recent poetry and plays out of Ulster.
Philip French in The Observer 16.9.84.

'Cal', a passionate whisper from a darkling plain, takes a firm grasp on one's attention. It is a very fine thing.
Richard Schicklel from Time

Superbly filmed and scored, 'Cal' is a rare adult, intelligent, good movie.
Stewart Klein WNEW TV

Unsparingly intelligent and compassionate - rare qualities in these days of movies that seem created by computerized money-machines.
Richard Freedman of Newhouse Newspapers