At his aunts' annual Feast of the Epiphany Party, lecturer Gabriel Conroy (Donal McCann) toasts and addresses the revelers while being confronted with uneasy realities, including the unsettling revelation stirred by his wife Greta's (Angelica Huston) sudden memory of a deceased lover. In his last film of a lengthy, robust career, John Huston's The Dead is reflective and evocative, made with an acute eye for detail, and (in a screenplay by his son Tony) faithful to James Joyce's short story to a tee, especially the beautiful and starkly captured final passage. Angelica (also kin to the director) and McCann are superb.
*** 1/2 out of ****
