Starring the incomparable Sarah Greene in the title role, Rosie follows a mother of four over 36 frantic hours. After being priced out of Dublin’s rental market, Rosie and her partner, John Paul (Moe Dunford), find themselves with no relatives’ couches left to surf and no hotel vouchers left to use. Their only shelter is a crowded SUV.
But that is precisely why it is essential viewing. The film is a powerful act of empathy, forcing us to look at the people living in the cars in our own neighborhoods. It transforms statistics ("47% of homeless people are children") into faces—specifically, the faces of a little boy who just wants a bath and a teenage girl trying to hide her shame from classmates. movie rosie
The camera stays claustrophobically close to Greene’s face, capturing every micro-expression of exhaustion, shame, and fierce, primal love. Rosie is not a victim; she is a tactician. She manages a schedule of school drop-offs, social work appointments, and calls to emergency housing lines with the precision of a general, all while keeping her children shielded from the full truth. The film’s most heartbreaking scenes are not arguments or breakdowns, but the quiet moments where Rosie tucks a blanket around a sleeping child in a parking garage, pretending the concrete walls are a bedroom. Rosie is explicitly an Irish film, rooted in Dublin’s housing crisis and the "Generation Rent" phenomenon. However, its themes are universal. The film speaks directly to any developed nation grappling with income inequality, a lack of social housing, and the cruel irony of a thriving economy that leaves its most vulnerable citizens behind. Starring the incomparable Sarah Greene in the title