The Brothers McMullen at 30: Ed Burns’ Therapy Project Masquerading as Cinema

The Brothers McMullen

Directed by: Ed Burns

Written by: Ed Burns

Starring: Ed Burns, Mike McGlone, Connie Britton

Released: August 12, 1995

The Movie That Therapy Could Have Prevented

Watching The Brothers McMullen three decades after its release, I’m convinced it never needed to exist—at least not in its final form. Had Ed Burns simply gone to therapy in 1994, perhaps cinema could have been spared this self-indulgent parade of immature, lonely, loser men. Instead, Burns poured his baggage onto the screen, fully unaware that his bitterness and insecurities about women were laid bare for all to see.

This Sundance darling is still held up as a touchstone of the 1990s indie boom. But beneath its talky script and supposedly soulful observations, The Brothers McMullen is less a portrait of flawed men and more a confession of how little its creator understood women—or wanted to.

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Three Brothers, Zero Insight

Burns casts himself as Barry, the middle McMullen brother and a rising screenwriter struggling with his second script. Barry has no real interest in women; he brings Ann (Elizabeth McKay) home to meet the family, then ditches her to get drunk with kid brother Patrick (Mike McGlone). This leaves Ann awkwardly stuck with older brother Jack (Jack Mulcahy), who promptly flirts with her despite being married to Molly (Connie Britton).

Jack and Molly’s marriage—seemingly stable, possibly headed toward children—crumbles when Jack decides monogamy has cheated him out of the chance to sleep with more women. Meanwhile, Patrick sabotages his own engagement for no discernible reason, blames his fiancée for their breakup (even though she has just had an abortion after he abandoned her), and then somehow wins her back before dumping her again.

And through it all, Burns insists these men are “noble,” stumbling toward growth, when they’re actually just selfish, cruel, and staggeringly self-absorbed.

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A Misogynist Banana Metaphor for the Ages

The film’s most telling moment comes in a scene where Barry “teaches” Patrick about women using a banana as metaphor. Women, Barry claims, peel men down, slice them up, and consume their masculinity with their cereal. It’s a scene so bitter and clueless it borders on parody.

Burns frames this like a thesis statement, as if audiences are meant to nod along. But what it really reveals is a filmmaker drowning in resentment, mistaking misogyny for profundity.

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Women as Villains, Props, and Consolation Prizes

Jack’s wife Molly is painted as a nag for wanting kids. Barry’s love interest is portrayed as unreasonable for being confused when he chases her relentlessly, only to later decide he’s “too busy” for a relationship. Patrick’s fiancée is reduced to a plot point, punished for existing as anything more than a backdrop to his childish crisis.

In The Brothers McMullen, women are never people. They’re props, obstacles, or prizes handed out once a man has wallowed enough in his immaturity. The script bends over backward to excuse their behavior and to blame women for their suffering.

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The Legacy of a Shitty Subgenre

Somehow, audiences and critics in 1995 embraced this film as authentic indie storytelling. But looking back, it’s painfully clear that The Brothers McMullen is less a timeless slice of Irish-American life and more the accidental prototype for a cottage industry of “shitty men rewarded by patient women” movies.

It set a template: bitter, self-pitying men framed as soulful, insightful truth-tellers, while women are punished for having needs, desires, or independent thought. Burns may have seen himself as chronicling flawed but sympathetic characters, but in truth, he was just broadcasting his issues without the benefit of introspection.

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Final Thoughts: A Film That Aged Like Sour Milk

As The Brothers McMullen turns 30, it’s not just outdated—it’s actively unpleasant. Watching it today isn’t like opening a time capsule of 1990s indie cinema; it’s like stumbling into someone else’s unprocessed therapy session. Burns thought he was writing men struggling nobly with love and family. Instead, he captured men trapped in cycles of bitterness, selfishness, and denial, with women dragged along as collateral damage.

If you want to hear even more about why this movie—and its entire “sensitive asshole men” subgenre—deserves our contempt, check out the I Hate Critics 1995 Podcast. Myself, Amy, and M.J. rip this film apart and put it in the context of the indie scene that spawned it. Find it on the I Hate Critics Movie Review Podcast feed wherever you listen to podcasts.

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Star Rating

⭐✰✰✰✰ (1 out of 5 stars)

Tags

The Brothers McMullan review, Ed Burns movies, indie film 1995, Connie Britton early career, 90s independent cinema, misogyny in movies, Sundance film history, worst indie movies, Irish-American films, I Hate Critics Podcast