TV Reviews : ‘Jill Ireland’: A Careful Tribute

By all accounts, the late actress Jill Ireland possessed extraordinary courage. To help others, she made public in two books her struggle with breast cancer and her adopted son’s drug addiction.

“Reason for Living: The Jill Ireland Story,” at 9 tonight on Channels 4, 36 and 39, is based on the second book, “Life Lines.” Starring Jill Clayburgh, it leans more toward memorial than compelling drama.

Part of the problem is that it’s difficult to buy the very recognizable Clayburgh as the equally well-known Ireland. Clayburgh’s erratic English accent doesn’t help, nor does Lance Henriksen’s slight presence as Ireland’s husband, Charles Bronson.

Directed by Michael Rhodes and written by Audrey Davis Levin, the film begins as Ireland learns that her troubled son Jason (Neill Barry) is a heroin addict. She makes his fight her own, even meeting the mother (Elizabeth Ashley) who gave him up for adoption to try to understand his pain.

It is Ireland’s close and tender relationship with her parents that temporarily deepens the film. Clayburgh and Lila Kaye, as Ireland’s mother, convey an unspoken understanding, the intimacy of women who not only share blood lines, but also are dear friends.

Most of the time, however, this overly careful tribute to a remarkable woman doesn’t get inside her skin, or anyone else’s, and the actors remain one-dimensional shadows of their real-life subjects.