Main Cast: Scott Glenn, Saffron Burrows, Joseph Kelly
Release Year: 2001
Country: US
Run Time: 100 minutes
Plot
John Gray wrote and directed this 2001 television production set in a fishing village on the west coast of Ireland in 1909. The 100-minute film gives Irish folklore a new character type, a seal that becomes a lovely human enchantress. The strange metamorphosis takes place after nine days of high tide create a mysterious "seventh stream," allowing the seal to go ashore and step out of her skin. From the outset, it seems clear that the sea-born beauty (Saffron Burrows) is meant for Owen Quinn (Scott Glenn), a fisherman who continues to lament the death of his wife five years after he buried her. However, villainous Thomas Dunhill (John Lynch) steals the sealskin and hides it. According to folk tales handed down over generations, whoever possesses the skin of a seal woman becomes her master. In addition, he reaps the benefits of the good luck she brings--in whopping catches of fish. Dunhill's father (Joseph Kelly), a wise old blind man, knows all about the myth of seal women. He also knows his son is a scoundrel. One day, he moves the sealskin to Quinn's property. Soon thereafter, the woman shows up at Quinn's doorstep, and he names her Mairead and falls in love with her--and she with him. But there are complications. Mrs. Gourdon (iona Shaw) a local shopkeeper, has set her cap for Quinn. Also, Thomas Dunhill has been murdered, and Quinn is a suspect. Finally, according to myth, Mairead must eventually reclaim her skin and return to the sea--or die. ~ Mike Cummings, All Movie Guide
Review
The Seventh Stream is a love story with a fairy-tale quality that no doubt will enchant many viewers. Others may find there is something not quite right about having a seal turn into a ravishing human beauty. A seal is no mermaid, after all, nor a foam-born Aphrodite. It is a barking, flipper-clapping, balancer of balls. Nevertheless, director and scriptwriter John Gray apparently liked the idea of a seal woman so much that all of the action in the film depends on how humans respond to her and she to them. Fortunately, when the seal becomes human, she is gorgeous--with long black hair, plaintive eyes, and a graceful, elegant bearing. Lovely Saffron Burrows is well cast as the beguiling young woman. There is about her an ethereality that makes her ideal for the part. American Scott Glenn also performs well. Portraying a lonely Irish fisherman (Owen Quinn) who pines for his long-dead wife, Glenn easily earns the sympathy of the audience with his painful ruminations about the irretrievable past. When he falls in love with the seal woman--whom he calls Mairead--he gives the audience reason to cheer. His Irish accent and fisherman's persona--written into every crag of his rugged countenance--seem authentic. Fiona Shaw is excellent as the benevolent shopkeeper with designs on Quinn, and Joseph Kelly makes the seal myth believable as the wizened blind man, Eamon Dunhill. The cinematography captures the quaintness of an early 20th Century Irish fishing village, as well as the rugged beauty of the Irish coast. As for Gray's idea of turning a seal into a beautiful woman, well, let us be thankful that he did not choose a walrus. ~ Mike Cummings, All Movie Guide
