Some aficionados of Ulysses remember the picnic at which Molly, then Marian Tweedy, seduced Leopold Bloom at a picnic at Howth Head around 1888. The lovers traveled to the outskirts of Dublin, where they made love among the wild rhododendrons and ferns. It is a climactic moment in Molly’s memory of the day and one Sean Walsh faithfully presents.
Joyce ends the novel with Molly’s soliloquy and memory of that picnic, but Walsh begins where Joyce ends. Molly’s recollection is romantic and ecstatic as she tells how she leads Leopold along until he must propose marriage to her, and she must accept him. “The sun shines for you, he said the day we were lying among the rhododendrons on Howth Head in the grey tweed suit and his straw hat the day,” Molly says, “I got him to propose to me yes first I gave him the bit of seedcake out of my mouth and it was leap year like now yes 16 years ago my God after that long kiss I near lost my breath yes he said I was a flower of the mountain yes so we are flowers all a womans body yes that was one true thing he said in his life and the sun shines for you today yes that was why I liked him because I saw he understood or felt what a woman is and I knew I could always get round him and I gave him all the pleasure I could leading him on till he asked me to say yes…” 
Molly feeds Bloom seed cake from her mouth to his, like a woman feeding a tame parrot, Marian Tweedy (aka Molly) seduces Leopold Bloom. “I got him to propose to me,” she says, “yes first I gave him the bit of seedcake out of my mouth . . .” Bloom says, “Yum.”
*Howth is pronounced Ho-th. Walsh’s screenplay is taken from Joyce’s text.
Featured Image: Stephen Rea as Leopold Bloom and Angeline Ball as Molly Bloom
See Sean Walsh’s Bloom (2004). Screenplay by Sean Walsh using and editing text from Joyce’s novel, available at Ulysses http://www.gutenberg.org/files/4300/4300-h/4300-h.htm; Joseph Strick Ulysses (1967). Screenplay by Fred Haines and Joseph Strick based on James Joyce’s novel.
Streaming: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ii_aZ6djNkM