Andre Salas talks with director Dan Ireland about Passionada

Sofia Milos Jason Isaacs in Passionada.

Director Dan Ireland returns with a decidedly different kind of vision for his third feature, the romantic drama Passionada. A love story set within the Portuguese community of a New England fishing town, the film eschews the art-house trappings of his first two projects, The Whole Wide World and The Velocity of Gary, choosing instead to revel in its Latin-American soap-opera sensibility.

But while the slick, gloriously commercial love story of Passionada may seem like a radical departure for Ireland, he insists the film is just as personal as his other films, maybe more so.

“To be honest, I kept thinking of my own mother, and how she went through a similar experience when my father walked out on her. It changed her and the family completely.”

Passionada tells the story of Celia, a beautiful, young widow trying to raise a feisty daughter with a penchant for trouble. Things aren’t made any easier by the presence of Celia’s overbearing mother-in-law, played by Lupe Ontiveros with the prerequisite eye-rollings and scowls. Singing her heart out nights at a local eatery appeases Celia’s pent-up passions, that is until dashing cad Charlie Beck shows up and offers the real thing. Trouble is, Charlie is a gambler with connections to several shady characters. Whether the two can find true love and salvation in each other’s arms is the movie’s lynchpin conflict: is he just using Celia, or is this a second chance at life for two wounded individuals?

Emmy Rossum in Passionada.

If it all sounds too cliché to be believed, that’s because it is. But Ireland manages to give overwrought melodrama a fresh spin; you sense he really believes in his characters and situations. The actors and scenery are lovingly shot with a reverence generally reserved for religious icons, and that’s the point. Forgiveness and new beginnings factor heavily in the proceedings.

“When I read the script for Passionada, I thought it was cheeky and fun, and I thought it had a big heart,” says Ireland. “And I really related to Celia, and the fact that she was living in the past, every night. The pain that she goes through is all internalized. And she has the good fortune at least to let it out through her music.”

Passionada also hearkens back to the classic romantic weepies of the ’30s and ’40s, where bad boys and tough girls meet, and love redeems even the most unrepentant sinner.

“I loved the challenge of trying to take a liar and turn him into a sympathetic character. Because Charlie is a liar, I think a lot of women will either have the reaction that they will love the movie, or they’ll go, ‘This guy is a liar, how could you care for him?’ But you see the guilt, you see the pain, you see the flaws that he has, and you see the flaws that she has as well. And maybe it wasn’t what it was when we were 17 or 18, but it is what it is, and when two people have it together it’s like being together and growing from each other.”

Sofia Milos in Passionada.

Ireland, besides directing, is quite well known as a producer; his credits include such fare as Twister, The Crew, and several films by Ken Russell. “I love producing, but I like directing more.

“I was really fortunate to have a great producer on this picture — Dave Bakalar — who also financed the film out of his own pocket. Pretty unbelievable; generally producers don’t finance.

“He was amazing; he’s seventy but he worked tirelessly, and he really respected my opinions. I felt like I was working with one of those legendary producers.”

Such effusion lies in stark contrast to Ireland’s experience working on The Velocity of Gary, a film that was ultimately not well received, and is perhaps another reason why Passionada’s theme of second chances resonates so strongly for him.

“Every bit of pain and agony I went through on Velocity was completely eradicated. Passionada was, in a way, about my rebirth, about my faith in the creative process, because after Velocity, I didn’t want to make a movie for a long time. I really got screwed on my cut of that picture, and I got hurt, I really got hurt bad. And, unfortunately, I internalized all my pain. This movie taught me to express it, and to move on.”