Ondine (2010)

One day a simple fisherman, trawling off the Irish coast where he makes his living, catches a beautiful and mysterious woman in his nets. She appears to be dead but, miraculously, comes back to life before his eyes. So begins Neil Jordan's deeply enchanting fairy tale of a movie. Ondine effortlessly mixes myth and fantasy with the life of a fishing community on the jagged seascapes of the wild southwest Irish coast.

The fisherman, Syracuse, is a devilish, irresponsible loner, separated from his former wife and distanced from Annie, his wheelchair-bound daughter. But everyone's drab and ordinary life is about to change with the arrival of the ethereal Ondine, the woman from the sea, who may or may not be real. Annie has a powerful belief in folklore, and the world-weary Syracuse soon finds himself believing that the stranger may well be a myth come true, a woman sent to change his life and a powerful force for love and hope. As Syracuse falls under Ondine's captivating spell, he discovers that his relationship with his daughter undergoes the same kind of magical transformation. All the trials and tribulations of life seem to be replaced by a marvellous halo of possibilities. Reality will make an appearance again, but not before Jordan spins his own dreamlike web, using both character and landscape to transport us to another, heightened plane of believability.