History Film / AGoodWomanIsHardToFind

* PoliceAreUseless: The police do nothing to solve Sarah's husband's murder. When she gets coerced into helping a thief, Sarah never calls them, possibly jaded by this. After she [[spoiler: kills him in self-defense]], they only afterward, with one being [[BlamingTheVictim very unsympathetic]] to her apparent situation. They never feature in the plot again, as she goes about solving things herself.

* ADateWithRosiePalms: Sarah, one lonely night, decides to use her vibrator, then desperately has to search for batteries for it.

Recently widowed Sarah (Creator/SarahBolger) is struggling in life, taking care of two small children and trying to make ends meet. She talks to the police when she has time, hoping for progress in her husband’s murder investigation, but it's starting to seem like there ''is'' no investigation; everyone, even Sarah's mother Alice (Jane Brennan), thinks her husband was a drug dealer and that Sarah needs to just move on.

Meanwhile, small-time hood Tito (Andrew Simpson) enacts a plan to steal drugs from some local dealers. It works, but when they pursue him he ducks into the only place he can find to escape them – Sarah's flat. He scares Sarah into letting him hide there, then comes up with another plan. He'll hide the drugs at her place where no one would look for them, sell them off a little at a time, and split the profits with her. Still frightened, Sarah reluctantly goes along – she doesn't have much choice, and she could certainly use the money – but then she realizes something: this new underworld contact might give her a way to find out what really happened to her husband. Unfortunately for both of them, the local crime boss, Leo (Edward Hogg), isn't about to let the theft of his drugs go unpunished.

* AttemptedRape: [[spoiler:When Sarah's son Ben gets into Tito's drugs Sarah fakes that she's into him, distracting Tito with the offer of sex. She can't go through with it though, and he's so angry he tries to rape her.]]
* AxCrazy: Leo is very unstable and his solution to virtually every problem is violence. [[spoiler:When Sarah shows up with Tito's severed head, even he and his {{mooks}} are taken aback and decide she's a "psycho."]]
* BeneathNotice: [[spoiler:No one suspects that Sarah, who so far as most know is just a single working mother of two kids, would be behind a Dublin crime boss and his men's killings, along with the body parts found in a rubbish center. The news report at the end attributes this to a [[MobWar rival gang]].]]

* {{Blackmail}}: [[spoiler:At the end of the film Sarah gets revenge on a creepy man by threatening that she'll claim he flashed her son and makes him pay for a treat to stop her.]]

* ChekhovsGun: [[spoiler:Several, though they're not always obvious. Sarah uses both her vibrator and the knife she used earlier to retrieve batteries to defend herself when Tito tries to rape her. She then uses the gun she finds on his dead body to kill Leo and his men, then uses Leo's hammer to finish one of them off.]]

* DamselOutOfDistress: Sarah manages to save herself from rape and murder by [[spoiler:Tito]] through stabbing him with a nearby knife.

* DecapitationPresentation: [[spoiler:Sarah presents Leo with Tito's severed head.]]
* DisposingOfABody: [[spoiler:Sarah has to gruesomely cut up Tito's body after she [[KillingInSelfDefense kills him in self-defense]], then drops the pieces in different garbage bins.]]

* KillingInSelfDefense: Sarah kills Tito as he's trying to rape and murder her. Though justified, it still leaves her traumatized. [[spoiler:Later she also kills Miller and his men, who were going to murder her if she hadn't.]]

* NoSympathy: Sarah's mother acts annoyed by her still mourning her husband, saying she had a whole future ahead before the two got married (he wasn't a good match in her view). Naturally, this makes Sarah angry. Later on though she apologizes for this, implying she'd been jealous as Sarah is the only person she'd ever really loved.
* OOCIsSeriousBusiness: Sarah and Alice spend most of the movie arguing, especially as Sarah's behavior seems to get more and more mysterious. When, towards the end, Sarah says that Alice was a good mother, Alice responds, "Now you're scaring me." (they don't have a good relationship, and had argued in their previous scene).
* PoliceAreUseless: The police do nothing to solve Sarah's husband's murder. When she gets coerced into helping a theif, Sarah never calls them, possibly jaded by this. After she [[spoiler:kills him in self-defense]], they only afterward, with one being [[BlamingTheVictim very unsympathetic]] to her apparent situation. They never feature in the plot again, as she goes about solving things herself.
* StrugglingSingleMother: Sarah is a widow with two kids, whose husband recently was murdered. Because of this she's struggling, with her shown not being able to pay for everything early on at the market, which a female clerk is sympathetic over, saying they've all been there.
* TraumaCongaLine: Sarah is a widow starting out, mourning the death of her husband (who had been murdered) and struggling along with their two kids. Then she's coerced into hosting a thief and also becoming a partner in crime to him. She's forced to [[KillingInSelfDefense kill him in self defense]], then [[DisposingOfABody dispose of his body]] afterward. It doesn't end there though, since the drug dealer whom he stole from goes after her to find his drugs. [[spoiler:She's forced to kill the guy and his thugs too, so she can live, along with her kids.]]

* GrammarNazi: After Sarah says Leo Miller must "stay away from me and my children" he corrects this to "my children and I". Which is, hilariously, wrong. Sarah's diction is the correct order and word choice.

* GrammarNazi: After Sarah says Leo Miller must "stay away from me and my children" he corrects this to "my children and I".

* StrugglingSingleMother: Sarah is a widow with two kids, whose husband recently was murdered. Because of this she's struggling, with her shown not being able to pay for everything early on at the market, which a female checker is sympathetic over, saying they've all been there.

* OOCIsSeriousBusiness: Sarah and Alice spend most of the movie arguing, especially as Sarah's behavior seems to get more and more mysterious. When, towards the end, Sarah says that Alice was a good mother, Alice responds, "Now you're scaring me," (they don't have a good relationship, and had argued in their previous scene).

* OOCIsSeriousBusiness: Sarah and Alice spend most of the movie arguing, especially as Sarah's behavior seems to get more and more mysterious. When, towards the end, Sarah says that Alice was a good mother, Alice responds, "Now you're scaring me."

* PoliceAreUseless: The police do nothing to solve Sarah's husband's murder.
* RealismInducedHorror: The film's horrific aspects (coercion from criminals, harassment by a creep, life-threatening danger at the hands of gangsters) are all quite real.

* ElectiveMute: Sarah's son Ben hasn’t spoken since witnessing his father's murder. A therapist says that he can speak, but that his brain, as a defense mechanism, pushed the memory of that violence into a dark corner, and unfortunately his speech went with it.

* DisposingOfABody: [[spoiler:Sarah has to gruesomely cut up Tito's body after she [[KillingInSelfDefense kills him in self defense]], then drops the pieces in different garbage bins.]]

* DamselOutOfDistress: Sarah manages to save herself from rape and murder by Tito through stabbing him with a nearby knife.

* GrammarNazi: After Sarah says Leo Miller must “stay away from me and my children” he corrects this to "my children and I".

* ActionGirl: Sarah evolves into this over the course of the film, first {{killing in self defense}} to defend herself from {[attempted rape}} and murder, then managing [[spoiler:to kill a crime boss along with his armed thugs despite having no apparent prior experience in using guns.]]

* ActionGirl: Evie's initial attraction to Xavier, as she's a more shy woman while he's very outgoing and uninhibited. It's {{deconstructed}} however because she doesn't go for {{polyamory}} as he does, but Xavier is willing to commit for Evie.

* AttemptedRape: [[spoiler:When Sarah's son Ben gets into Tito’s drugs Sarah fakes that she's into him, distracting Tito with the offer of sex. She can't go through with it though, and he's so angry he tries to rape her.]]

* AttemptedRape: [[spoiler:When Sarah's son Ben gets into Tito’s drugs Tito is so angry he tries to rape her.]]

* DisposingOfABody: [[spoiler:Sarah is forced to do this after killing Tito in self-defense.]]

Meanwhile, small-time hood Tito (Andrew Simpson) enacts a plan to steal drugs from some local dealers. It works, but when they pursue him he ducks into the only place he can find to escape them – Sarah's flat. He scares Sarah into letting him hide there, then comes up with another plan. He'll hide the drugs at her place where no one would look for them, sell them off a little at a time, and split the profits with her. Still frightened, Sarah reluctantly goes along – she doesn't have much choice, and she could certainly use the money – but then she realizes something: this new underworld contact might give her a way to find out what happened really happened to her husband. Unfortunately for both of them, the local crime boss, Leo (Edward Hogg), isn't about to let the theft of his drugs go unpunished.