Is Sin Private?
A reflection on the 1970 epic film, Ryan's Daughter
*This article was originally published on RealClear Religion
Rosy Ryan (Sarah Miles) is not happy, yet she has everything: a good husband, Charles Shaughnessy (Robert Mitchum) whom she had been pining for; enough money; and her health. However, as a woman fixated on pursuing sexual transcendence, she finds her marriage more than disappointing.
Her drama, which is at the center of the 1970 epic film Ryan’s Daughter that recently aired on Turner Classic Movies (TCM), is all-consuming. Meanwhile, in this intimate story, British filmmaker David Lean — who helmed such classics such as Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), and Doctor Zhivago (1965) — places her as a mere speck striding along Ireland’s vast western coastline in a cosmic juxtaposition. On her isolated walk, Rosy crosses the local priest, Father Collins (Trevor Howard) who notices her distress. Although he is not easily fooled, Father Collins ministers to her, highlighting Rosy’s blessings, while trying to deduce the source of her anguish.
Nothing soothes her. As Rosy hesitantly admits to the priest, she doesn’t know what more she wants, but recognizes she is “stupid, conceited, self-centered, and ungrateful like you’ve always told me.”
Since she does not explain the more she seeks, Father Collins frustratedly asks, “Why? Glory be to God, why must there be [more]? Because Rosy Ryan wants it?” Rosy responds with a firm, defiant, “Aye,” to which she receives swift retribution — a slap across the cheek.
“Don’t nurse your dreams, Rosy,” Father Collins warns a humbled Rosy. “You can’t help having them, but don’t nurse them. Because if you nurse your dreams, they tend to come true.”
In the next scene, Rosy’s “dream” does come true: Major Doryan (Christopher Jones), a British officer who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, arrives in her village, Kirrary, to rest after fighting on the Western Front. Upon meeting at the local pub, the pair quickly conduct an affair, rendezvousing on several sexual exploits that are then discovered by the “village idiot,” Michael (John Mills in an Academy Award-winning performance). Concurrently, Irish freedom-fighters led by Tim O’Leary (Barry Foster) are hiding in Kirrary, and retrieve German guns and ammunition on the violent shore to repel the British from Ireland. When O’Leary is captured and killed, Kirrary residents accuse Rosy, believing that she warned her British lover. The village descends into a chaotic mob that, eventually, horrifyingly shames her. The film’s woes — infidelity, betrayal, deceit, and death — are all intertwined with and/or sowed by Rosy’s “dream.”
Better yet the priest to have called it Rosy’s “nightmare.”
Contemporary reviews maligned Ryan’s Daughter as lengthy (a whooping three-plus hours) and self-indulgent with characters that are “finally dwarfed by [Lean’s] excessive scale,” as criticized by Roger Ebert. The lackluster reviews speak more to the critics’ high standards for Lean after he directed three of the greatest movies ever back-to-back-to-back. Nevertheless, Lean’s Irish epic expertly depicts the privacy of sin — or lack thereof.
Rosy’s adultery could once be considered private, as she and Major Doryan meet in woods and caves, but that is a falsehood. After lying with the British officer, her demeanor and actions swiftly change, noticeably so that her husband’s suspicions are raised. Father Collins, meanwhile, knows something is afoul, even stating, “You’ll have to tell it in confessional, you little fool.” However, Rosy defiantly responds, “I don’t have to come…to the confessional,” lacking any remorse for her deceit. After all, in her mind, she was pursuing love. And what is wrong with that? After all, the heart wants, what the heart wants.
This modern yet ancient deception has led many astray, and is often coupled with the new-age philosophy, “If it’s not harming anyone else, then it’s not wrong.” After all, Satan does not tempt us with things we would outrightly despise — otherwise, that would be an utterly pointless effort. And for a being hell-bent on stealing souls that are mortal on this coil, he has no time to spare since our time is limited.
Ultimately, there is no privacy to sin since it infects everything. Our thoughts and actions are not confined to our own rooms, persons or minds — for even in our alone time, we can cultivate or “nurse” unbefitting mindsets and habits. As Jesus Christ teaches, “But I say to you, everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew, Ch. 5:28). Conversely, we can develop the good in our souls. As Our Lord says later in Matthew’s Gospel, we should “go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you” (Matthew Ch. 6:6). Christ is showing that what we do alone, in secret, has both immediate and eternal consequences. Our alone time matters.
But we are also communal creatures. We affect one another — and we need one another, as evidenced by the pandemic lockdowns. Unfortunately, some took that time to cultivate addictions to numb the loneliness like pornography and drugs (even yours truly lost a friend to the latter in the pandemic’s early days). Yet these acts are not done in isolation. They have a ripple effect, driving a wedge between ourselves and those we love, and could even cost us our lives. In Ryan’s Daughter’s final act, this hysterical effect reaches its peak when villagers storm Charles and Rosy’s home and enact a vengeful judgment (even though Rosy did not betray O’Leary). She even loses her fleeting “dream” when Major Doryan commits suicide from the guilt of ruining her reputation.
However, Lent is a time of purposeful deprivation of earthly idols to realign our broken hearts toward God. By depriving ourselves of what the heart wants and recognizing that our sins — done in secret or the open — harm others, we instead nurse steady, prayerful, and even transcendent habits.
In Ryan’s Daughter, Rosy learns this all but too late. However, it is not too late for us.