Wish the relationship with Pierre could have developed further

Although I wish we could have seen a developing relationship with Pierre, I think that the film beautifully sidestepped some obvious Hollywood style cliches in which Pierre would have seen Mr. Billy threatening the children and beaten the living daylights out of him in front of a cheering crowd (the Quiet Man). Agnes and Pierre would have gone to bed together, after which he would have quietly told her of his wife and family back home in France and that their affair could go no further (Queen of the Stardust Ballroom). By avoiding these cliches, the film remained a sweet slice-of-life fairy tale and was the better for it.

It should also be remembered that we tend to judge the past by by today's standards. In 1968's Ireland contraception was illegal and abortion is still prohibited. For a widow with seven children to suddenly bear a child out of wedlock was a monumental scandal. As we saw in the pub where Agnes and Pierre were being watched by the customers, by the time the pair of them had closed her door behind them half of Dublin would have known that 'they were having an affair'. There was no Twitter or Internet then, and few people had a phone, but the neighborhood gossips would have been flying down the street letting everyone know what she was up to. Her benefits would have been severely cut or stopped altogether as she was known to be seeing a man, and therefore, presumably being kept by him. Ireland was not kind to women, especially a woman presumed to be of questionable morals whether she was guilty or not.