If you don’t know the name Rose Dugdale (and I didn’t before watching this film) you probably soon will thanks to Imogen Poots’ exceptional performance in this biopic about this fascinating woman.
Dugdale was born into a wealthy English family – her millionaire father was an underwriter at Lloyd’s of London who owned an estate in Devon. She was privately educated, went to finishing school and, in 1958 was presented as a debutante at the start of the social season. In short, she was a rich white girl with a life of privilege laid out before her.
Except Dugdale rebelled against all that and instead became a volunteer in the Provisional Irish Republican Army and, central to this film, was part of an armed raid on Russborough House in County Wicklow, the home of Sir Alfred Beit, during which paintings worth multi-millions were stolen. She also was arrested for her part in a burglary at her own family home, was involved in an attempted bomb attack on a Royal Ulster Constabulary station using a hijacked helicopter, and later in life developed explosive devises that would then be used (by others) in terrorist attacks that killed and injured many people.
Despite her colourful and dramatic life, filmmakers Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor have crafted a low-key drama, however, which focuses mainly on the events of 1974 when Dugdale, along with three other IRA members, held the Beit family at gunpoint and then made off with a carload of artwork. The narrative switches back and forth between events at the house during the raid and afterwards, when Dugdale squirreled herself away with the paintings at a remote house in County Cork.
The most effective part of the film, for me, comes in the third act, when Dugdale is left alone with the artwork at her rural hideaway and must contend with the curiosity of a local man, Donal (Dermot Crowley), whose daughter owns the house that she is renting. A compelling thriller emerges at this point as it becomes clear to Donal that Dugdale is the woman the police have launched a nationwide hunt for, knowledge that may well get him killed.
Despite the occasional flashback to Dugdale’s earlier life, charting the course she took from heiress to terrorist, what this film doesn’t do is explain why it was that she became a radicalised young woman on a mission to break the capitalist system – no matter what the cost. Dugdale remains as enigmatic at the end of this film as she is at the start, but you may find yourself wanting to know more about her once the credits have rolled.
Baltimore is in cinemas from March 22
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