A loosely structured day-in-the-life, writer/director Ira
Sachs’s Frankie drops in on a family vacation in lovely Sintra,
Portugal.
It’s a posh event, no doubt, but the idyllic setting contrasts with the emotions roiling beneath the surface of the film. That is best depicted by cinematographer Rui Pocas, who captures the distance, the awkward directionlessness, and the isolation.
Pocas’s camera catches the meandering spirit of the film as it winds its way through the streets of this historic, mist-enshrouded city, catching up here and there with the different members of the party. Each arrives at the behest of family matriarch, Frankie (Isabelle Huppert), and her doting second husband, Jimmy (Brendan Gleeson).
Intersecting stories involve Frankie’s ex-husband Michel
(Pascal Greggory) and their grown son Paul (Jeremie Renier); her step-daughter
Sylvia (Vivette Robinson) and her family; and a close friend (Marisa Tomei) who’s
surprised everyone by bringing along a boyfriend (Greg Kinnear).
The tiny yet formidable Huppert perfectly embodies her
character, frail but decidedly in control. In fact, the size difference between
the great Huppert and the also great Gleeson is in gorgeously inverted
proportion to their stubborn resolve.
Gleeson is all gentle, heartbroken support while Huppert’s
performance is removed stoicism, which makes her fleeting moments of
vulnerability all the more human. Seeing these remarkable veteran talents and
their love story is more than reason enough to experience this film.
Sachs’s greying narrative, while never pushy, feels
determined to expose our personal desires to check off boxes and maintain the
illusion of control. Frankie manipulates events to find solace in the idea that
there are final solutions, or that a person may continue to be needed and
useful, even present for our loved ones after we’re gone.
Are you ready? It’s just about time to find your Guinness T-shirt and crack everybody up with “You know what I wish? IRISH I had another beer!” Yeah, that one always kills, most likely because all your friends are hammered.
But aside from the blackouts and inflated drink prices, let’s celebrate the season with five..er..six of our favorite Irish flicks!
6. The Boondock Saints (1999):
Let’s start with the pretend Irish here at home. Jesus, these brogues are terrible. Just awful. But writer/director Troy Duffy’s sordid story of the righteously violent McManus twins did find an audience. They’re out to clean up the Boston they love – or at least ensure that it’s the Irish, not the Russians, allowed to shoot up the neighborhood. Steeped in Catholicism, blood, pathos and, again, the worst imaginable accents, Boondock Saints is weirdly watchable. It helps that Willem Dafoe tags along as one bat shit insane FBI agent.
5. Knuckle (2011)
James Quinn McDonagh cuts an enigmatic presence through the bloody world of Irish Traveler bare knuckle “fairfights” in Ian Palmer’s documentary Knuckle. The unbeaten pride of the Quinn McDonaghs, James takes on challengers from the feuding Joyce clan. Unfortunately, each win quells the action only briefly, as family members’ chest thumping and boasting reignite the feud, and another challenge is made. Palmer aims to illustrate the culture that fuels rather than overcomes its grudges, due in equal measure to unchecked bravado and finance (wagers bring in fast money for the winning clan). Filming for more than a decade, Palmer uncovers something insightful about the Traveler culture, and perhaps about masculinity or warmongering at its most basic.
4. The Guard (2011)
Then to a lighthearted look at drugs and crime on the Emerald Isle. Writer/director John Michael McDonagh assembles a dream cast anchored by the ever-reliable Brendan Gleeson to wryly articulate a tale of underestimation and police corruption in this very Irish take on the buddy cop movie. Through Gleeson, McDonagh shares a dark, philosophical yet silly humor, crafts almost slapstick action, and offers a view of hired guns as workaday folk. The Guard is a celebration of tart Irish humor and character; the actual plot merely provides the playground for the fun.
3. Calvary (2014)
McDonagh and Gleeson return three years later in Calvary. The endlessly wonderful Gleeson plays Fr. Michael, a dry-witted but deeply decent priest who has a week to get his affairs in order while a parishoner plans to kill him. Sumptuously filmed and gorgeously written, boasting as much world-weary humor as genuine insight, it’s an amazing film and a performance that should not be missed.
2. Once (2006)
You can’t celebrate St. Pat’s without some music. In Once, an Irish street musician fixes vacuums by day and dreams of heading to London in search of a recording contract. His unpredictable relationship with a Czech immigrant becomes the needed catalyst. Writer/director John Carney creates a lovely working man’s Dublin in a film blessed with sparkling performances from heretofore unknown leads Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova. Their chemistry and their music are the heart of the film. This immensely charming slice of life picture, superbly crafted with tender realism, also boasts an honest, understated screenplay, and undoubtedly the best soundtrack of 2006.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWJIylZ8VyM
1. The Commitments (1991)
Jimmy Rabbitte intends to manage the greatest soul band in the world, so he hand crafts The Commitments, a Dublin-based, all white, blue collar soul band the likes of which Ireland has never seen. (The band includes Hansard again, much younger and with a magnificent ‘fro.) Alan Parker’s “behind the music” style tale of the rise and fall of a band is as charming, energetic and great sounding a way to spend St. Patrick’s Day as you will find.
Those are a few of our favorites…and if you think we missed any…let’s meet at the bar and fight about it!
Has the Catholic Church so comprehensively betrayed the nation of Ireland that it would take the second coming of the Messiah to set things straight?
Maybe.
The ever more impressive writer/director John Michael McDonagh may not be trying to rectify the Church’s situation, nor is he bringing about revelation. Rather, he offers a microcosm of the fallout with insight, humor and compassion in Calvary.
Brendan Gleeson, as brilliant as always, plays Father James, a good priest. As the film opens, we sit inside the cramped confessional as Fr. James waits for the penitent on the other side to begin.
“I first tasted semen when I was seven years old.”
It’s not a confession so much as an announcement. The parishioner, whose face we never see, spent a childhood of horrifying abuse at the hands of a priest. But what good is it to kill a bad priest? If you want to really send a message, you kill a good priest.
He gives Fr. James a week to get his affairs in order and makes a date to take his life. “Sunday week, let’s say?”
It’s almost too ripe a premise, really, and yet McDonagh’s never stoops to melodrama, or even thriller. As Fr. James goes about his week tending to his parish and reflecting on what’s to be done about this threat, we get the unique perspective of a good, decent man with a collar.
The dry, insightful, exasperated humor that saturates McDonagh’s writing is a thrill to take in, and Gleeson has never been better. Never showy, without a hint of sentimentality, he brings this decent but hardly sinless man authentically to life.
As Fr. James’s week drags on, McDonagh and his ensemble slowly amplify the wickedness of the townsfolk, creating, finally, a real parallel between the plight onscreen and the allusion of the title. But nothing about Calvary is even moderately preachy.
The priesthood is not what it used to be – not for them or for us. And it may be too late to save the Catholic Church. But a filmmaker who can hold up a mirror to our troubled times and find weary humor and redemptive humanity in it is inspiration in itself.
Even if you’re not a romantic comedy fan, it’s hard to dislike Love Actually, right? Sure, pieces of writer/director/Brit Richard Curtis’s film drag. Still, the fact that so many story lines – big and small – fit together so nicely, telling tales of heartache as well as true love, helps to make it an entertaining gem. So, why not give About Time – the latest from its creator – a shot?
Well, actually, it helps if you are not a fan of romantic comedies because, regardless of the marketing campaign, that label fits this film loosely at best.
About Time is perhaps the most understated time travel movie ever. The Lake family has a secret. Their men can travel – briefly and with very mild manners – through time. One New Year’s Day, this intel is passed from father (Bill Nighy – hooray!) to son (and unrepentant ginger), Tim (Domnhall Gleeson – son of the great character actor Brendan Gleeson, but best known as a Weasley boy from Harry Potter).
Tim mostly uses his power to improve his luck with girls, though he fails as often as succeeds because Richard Curtis loves adorably, politely, pitifully smitten Brits.
Tim’s big success is the love of his life, Mary (Rachel McAdams, aggressively adorable, as always).
The end.
Surprisingly enough, that is not true because bumbling awkwardly but endearingly toward true love is not the film’s real focus.
Rather, Curtis’s interest lies on the fringes of Tim’s life, with everyone and everything he fails to notice because of his dogged attention to his pursuit of true love. And in the end, that’s what Curtis wants of us: to slow down and notice everything. Live life fully and you won’t need time travel to go back and fix things.
If that sounds trite and patronizing, credit Curtis for developing it at a leisurely enough pace and with sound enough acting that it does not feel that way. The life lessons Tim learns are thoughtful, and Gleeson’s performance sells the tenderness and the hard-won wisdom.
What it doesn’t really settle is the almost creepy dishonesty of Tim’s wooing of Mary, and for all of the rest of the film’s Nice Guy Tim-isms, it’s hard to look past the SciFi trickery he utilizes to dupe this woman into loving him.
But I suppose you can look past that, since the romance is hardly the point. Unless you’re a fan of romantic comedies, in which case, may I recommend Love Actually?
