"You're good at it, " says Aidan Quinn's Harry Boland, Collins's friend and later bitter enemy.

WSJ: A Darker St. Pat's Film | Michael Collins | Neil Jordan | By Allen Barra

Benny Pearl (Aidan Quinn) is an auto mechanic who spends most of his time looking after his sister Joon (Mary Stuart Masterson).

NEWYORKER: Benny & Joon

With the villain on her trail, a cop named Hallstrom (Aidan Quinn) is assigned to protect her, a standard setup for falling in love.

NEWYORKER: Blink

She challenges every male authority figure in town and drives all the men wild especially the violent, alcoholic constable, Sergeant Hegarty (Albert Finney), who seethes when he sees her with her actor lover Tom (Aidan Quinn).

NEWYORKER: The Playboys

She's convinced that she's seeing someone murder the kid in an apple orchard, but she's not really sure. (Her husband, an airline pilot played by Aidan Quinn, rightfully assumes she's a crackpot.) The apple motif appears repeatedly throughout the film, usually to less-than-inspiring effect.

CNN: Review: 'In Dreams' closer to 'Nightmare on Elm' for adults

The action, loosely based on a true story and filmed on location at and near a Utah university (and, briefly, in China), concerns Liu Xing (Liu Ye), a brilliant young astrophysicist from Beijing who travels to the United States for graduate study under Professor Jacob Reiser (Aidan Quinn), a scientist whose work he admires but whose best years and ideas are behind him.

NEWYORKER: Dark Matter