Add to that the possibility that a collection of collegiate "unknowns" in a far-flung part of the U.S. could rise up and pull off a series of shocking upsets in the tournament is part of the beauty of this unscripted springtime story.

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The parish priest (David Sitler) wryly informs the audience at the outset that, while the story occurs in springtime of 1951, in Ireland it still felt like "a thousand years" earlier.

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And the story at times comes off as a loopy cross between "Springtime for Hitler" and Mozart's Cosi Fan Tutte.

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