Regretted Life Choices

Independent film.  English language.  Saw it on Showtime or HBO in 1994.  Set in late Victorian era.  Most likely set in Ireland but could be New Zealand or Australia.  Was in color.  I don’t believe there were any cars in the movie until the last scenes and they were 1910 era brass vehicles.  The town that was visited was a small port town.

A young aristocrat (university student) and his domineering fiance are on holiday in the country and a port town.  They are somehow separated and he suffers some memory loss somehow and ends up on a farm.  He becomes a laborer on the farm and eventually falls in love with one of the farmers daughters.  He works there for quite a while and is very happy.  He is content and has a wonderful, simple life.

Somehow his memory returns and for some reason he returns to the place where he was separated from his fiancé…and finds her.  For some reason he abandons his farm life and returns with his fiancee to his old life.  It is obvious that she is a domineering shrew and he returns anyway.

Maybe 30 years later while on another holiday, he and his wife are driving by the farm where he had worked.  As they are delayed for a road repair he recognizes a person he used to work with.  Actually, they recognize each other.  He learns that the girl he loved died in childbirth with his child…and then he sees who could only be his son as an adult working as part of the crew that is repairing the road.  His wife is totally unaware of the impact this is having on him.

He realizes he would have been much happier staying on the farm rather than returning to what was familiar and what was expected of him.  The film ends with him looking over his shoulder at his son as they drive away.

2 thoughts on “Regretted Life Choices

  1. can you remember the screen name or real name of any character in the movie? I am very sure I read a review of the same movie recently.

  2. I’m sorry. It’s been too long. I just don’t remember. I know I didn’t recognize any of the actors at that time. Randy

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