iW PROFILE | “Eden” Director Declan Recks

However, each character’s sense for the other remains a mystery for viewers to unravel for themselves. While O’Brien’s stage play unfolded through Billy and Breda’s internal monologues as they both directly addressed the audience—but never each other—Recks, collaborating with O’Brien on the screenplay, refused to use voiceovers as a crutch for displaying the couple’s fragility. “The question was, how do you see that without hearing what’s going on in their heads,” he said. “It was a big challenge for Eugene to get away from being able to tell people what was happening.”

Recks decided to alternate between two vastly different camera strategies to represent the divisive points of view. Scenes featuring Billy’s perspective, many of which find him intoxicated, were mainly shot with a handheld approach. For Breda, a relentless optimist vainly trying to rejuvenate her frayed marriage until the final devastating act, Recks used steadier shots on tripods and tracks. The result is a jarring sense of incompatibility, culminating with Billy’s savage, booze-fueled attempts to cheat on his wife at a party while she does the same outside.

As Billy and Breda simultaneously veer toward marital betrayal, Recks makes it impossible to sympathize with only one side of the equation. “One of the things we had in mind was how divided the audience was going to be at the end,” he said. “At the beginning, people side with Breda, but I think they’re both very flawed characters.” Recks said he recognized Billy and Breda from his own life. “I’ve seen them around town, at the pub,” he explained. “They’re the couples that barely talk to each other. Some people have trouble with [Billy] drinking so much. Why doesn’t she just leave him? It’s more complex than that.”

Although “Eden” hails from an entirely different world than hermetic, overtly sentimental American romances such as “The Notebook,” Recks’ attentive implementation of human impulses has a broad potential audience. Unsurprisingly, the movie was co-produced by David Collins, whose previous credits include the Oscar-winning 2006 drama “Once.” With its stripped-down emphasis on two believable characters and the straightforward conflict pulling them apart, “Eden” taps into a similar appeal: It’s universally bittersweet.

After a successful premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival, the film landed a North American distribution deal with Liberation Entertainment, which will release it this week. Meanwhile, Recks is collaborating with O’Brien on his next feature, a film noir. The director expects to rely on American financing for his more ambitious sophomore effort, but has no question about the setting. “There are very specific Irish stories that need to be made,” he said. “And they need to travel around.”