Themes: Death of a Parent, Haunted By the Past, Fathers and Sons
Director: Matt Clark
Main Cast: Barnard Hughes, Martin Sheen, William Hickey, Karl Hayden, Doreen Hepburn
Release Year: 1988
Country: US/IE
Run Time: 102 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG
Plot
Irish author Hugh Leonard's play Home Before Night was the basis of Da. Martin Sheen plays an Irish/ American playright living in New York. No matter how much he's assimilated himself, Sheen cannot escape the influence of his deceased adoptive father (Barnard Hughes). The writer has several heated confrontations with the "ghosts" of his father and mother (Doreen Hepburn), as well as with his own adolescent self (Karl Hayden). Sheen comes to realize that his own success was in part sparked by the failures of his "Da", a gardener who spent his life speaking in empty aphorisms and wishing he were someone else. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Hugh O'Conor - Boy Charlie; Ingrid Craigie - Polly; Joan O'Hara - Mrs. Prynne; Jill Doyle; Peter Hanly - Young Oliver; Maurice O'Donoghue; Aimee Clark; Frank McDonald; Marie Conmee; Ronan Wilmot; Kathy Greenblatt; Martin Dempsey; Marcus Colley
Credit
Nuala Moiselle - Casting, Carol Betera - Costume Designer, Nancy Nuttal Beyda - Editor, Martin Sheen - Executive Producer, Sam Grogg - Executive Producer, William R. Greenblatt - Executive Producer, Elmer Bernstein - Composer (Music Score), Frank Conway - Production Designer, Alar Kivilo - Cinematographer, Julie Corman - Producer, Martin Sheen - Producer, Sam Grogg - Producer, William R. Greenblatt - Producer, Hugh Leonard - Screenwriter, Hugh Leonard - Play Author
Da is a 1988 film directed by Matt Clark, produced by Julie Corman, and starring Martin Sheen, Barnard Hughes, reprising his Tony Award-winning Broadway performance,[1] and William Hickey. The screenplay was written by Irish playwright and journalist Hugh Leonard, who adapted it from his play Da, with additional material from his autobiographical book Home Before Night.
