On its premiere in New York's New Directors/New Films series, Guiltrip, the debut film of writer-director Gerard Stembridge, was described as "a small but powerfully raw Irish film." Set during a bitter night-long fight, it tells an uncompromising story of a troubled marriage against the backdrop of the impossibility of divorce. The preceding day slowly comes into view in an intricately constructed mosaic of flashbacks. Tina, virtually imprisoned by her Army corporal husband Liam's psychological violence, goes shopping with a neighbor and meets Ronnie, a sales clerk. Liam, whose pent-up rage is compellingly portrayed by Andrew Connolly, goes with friends to a pub, where he becomes entangled with Michelle, Ronnie's wife. By evening, each has a guilty secret. David Rooney described Guiltrip in Variety: "The film's dark psychological brutality makes for tough, cogent, often chilling drama, given an extra dose of claustrophobic oppression by its situation within a Catholic culture where many of the most insidious social problems are cloaked in silence."