Anges Browne (Anjelica Huston) is an endearing, but somewhat daft working class Irish gal with seven lovable kids. When the film starts, she bursts onto the screen with her best friend, Marion Monks (Marion O’Dwyer), attempting to collect welfare and death pension for Agnes’s husband who had died just hours before. With bureaucratic requirements in the way, pressing funeral expenses force Agnes to borrow from the local loan shark, Billy (Ray Winstone). Billy feeds on widows struggling to make it without men in their lives. In the wings is the shy French Baker (Arno Chevrier) who is opening a pastry shop next to the open market fruit and vegetable stand Marion and Agnes share. More than anything in the world, Agnes wants to hear Tom Jones perform, but the money is already too thinly stretched between debt, welfare, and the kids.

As the star, Anjelica Huston lights up the screen with a contagious hope in the power of women’s connection and dreams to break the bonds of debt and despair. As the director, Huston’s focus on simplicity allows the Irish spirit to shine through with the realistic hues and plain, but colorful language uttered with a lovely Irish lilt. 

The actors and actresses, including Ms. Huston, portray "real" people, most of whom are overweight and less than stellar in their attractiveness. They flirt, cavort, and play (sober and drunk) as they imagine their heart’s desires and express their hopes for lustful involvement. From the core of Agnes Browne emerges the magic of joy, hope, and sharing that is created when women get together to laugh at their delicious sensual stories and quandaries. The combination of Anjelica Huston’s charismatic screen presence, precise directorial hand, and the Irish tone from Brendan O’Carroll’s novel The Mammy creates a perfect setting in which one woman rediscovers her independence, passion, and beauty.