Gerard Barrett's GLASSLAND combines subtlety and melodrama to odd effect

Having recently seen the very fine American-Irish actor Jack Reynor in Sing Street, TrustMovies was fired up to view him in another Irish film, GLASSLAND, alongside one of TM's favorite actresses, Toni Collette, and another good performer, Will Poulter. As written and directed by a fellow named Gerard Barrett, the movie is nothing if not quiet and respectful. This is particularly surprising, however, considering that Barrett's film (the movie-maker is shown below) is all about alcohol addiction, dysfunctional family dynamics and heavy duty criminal activity. Unless I missed something along the way, however, the last of these three does not even suggest itself until nearly the end of the film.

These heavy-duty subjects, as handled by the movies, often result in melodrama -- especially when they're mixed together, as here. And yet Glassland, which refers I am guessing to a world in which everything around you is ripe for breakage, seems anything but melodramatic because its writer/director refuses to go that route. Instead he subdues everything so that even major plot points reveal themselves slowly via quietude and indirection. For anyone beaten down by Hollywood's heavy hand, not to mention those very long running times, this may seem like a kind of Nirvana (the movie lasts but 93 minutes).

Glassland is also a prime example of what some of us are fond of calling "British miserablism," Irish-style. It offers up everything from our current and horrible economic times to a very popular means -- alcohol -- to circumvent same, and even, maybe especially, a handicapped child.

Ms Collette (above) and Mr. Reynor (below) play alcoholic mother and hard-working son in a family where dad has gone missing and another, younger son with Down Syndrome resides in an institution. Fun, huh?

Determined to pull mom out of her abyss, good son does all his can -- which finally includes that aforementioned criminal activity. What it is and where and who it comes from is part of the movie's final surprise package -- the point being, I expect, that when we have little to nothing on our plate, we must do whatever it takes to obtain what we want. I'll buy that. But I don't buy Glassland, at least not fully.

The movie's sub-plot about Reynor's best pal (Mr. Poulter, above) and his problems could be excised in full and the film would not miss it in the least. In fact, we might have used that time concentrating on more and better specifics about the characters played by Collette and Reynor. Performances are all fine, so far as they go. But with more to work from, imagine what the actors might have given us. I'm all for subtlety and indirection, which Glassland offers in spades. But it also needs more content. Otherwise what's there begins to resemble, dare I say it, cliché.

From Film Movement, after a very limited theatrical run this winter, Glassland arrived on DVD this past Tuesday, May 3 -- for purchase and/or rental. 

Another "mothering" lesson in Peter A. Dowling's Irish horror thriller, SACRIFICE

Just yesterday we got an oddball lesson in mothering via Bulgaria, and here again today, we have another one from Ireland in the new horror thriller, SACRIFICE. Yesterday's tutorial came by and for women, but today's arrives via the guys, god bless 'em, and a more nasty, crazy, blood-thirsty and uber-patriarchal bunch of sleazebags, you're unlikely to find. This is thanks to director and adapter (of the novel by S.J. Bolton) Peter A. Dowling, shown below, who has done a pretty credible job of bringing this especially grizzly tale to the screen.

Most of the violence is kept off-screen, actually, but via a discovered corpse or two (and more to come) we fairly quickly learn the specifics of what happened (they're pretty ugly), if not quite why. Uncovering the latter is up to the film's star, Australia's always-willing-and-able Radha Mitchell, who plays a doctor who desperately wants to have a baby with hubby (Rupert Graves). But this is not to be, it seems; instead the pair travels to Ireland and a little island where hubby's wealthy family has quite a nice set-up going.

Ms Mitchell (above and below) is front and center throughout the film, and she handles her duties with her usual skill. From the film's particularly impressive opening scene in the hospital where she works as a gynecologist and has a very unusual session with a pregnant patient, the star proceeds to the island on which she very quickly determines that something is terribly wrong and begins investigating.

As usual in films like this, the townspeople, including the authorities, are not helpful, and so our heroine (Tora is her name) must tackle everything from the detective work to operating heavy machinery (below).  Just who -- if anyone -- is among the good guys is up for grabs here, which adds to the suspense and danger, all of which gets sorted out within the appropriate 90-minute running time.

A few red herrings turn up, the ensemble cast does everything required, and the movie overall plays out as swift, scary and (somewhat ghastly) fun. TrustMovies is making no claims to greatness here, but as horror thrillers go, Sacrifice is perfectly presentable, though it's something one might be inclined to view at home rather than making a pricier, more time-consuming trek to the cinema.

Which is all to the good, since the movie, from IFC Midnight, opens simultaneously on VOD and all digital platforms, as well as in a theater or two. In New York City, you can find it at the IFC Center (at a single late-night screening only) beginning tomorrow, April 29. The following Friday, May 6, it opens in Los Angeles at the Arena Cinema in Hollywood.  

Streaming: HARD TIMES proves passable Viagra comedy from Tom Reeve and Michael O'Mahony

The idea for this movie is a lot better than its final execution. That's faint praise, I suppose, and there are some funny moments and a deal of charm, as well, in this Irish-village-idiots-pull-a-heist comedy, HARD TIMES (formerly known as Holy Water), from director Tom Reeve and screenwriter Michael O'Mahony -- which is now available to stream via Netflix. If bearded men in nun drag turns you on (and I admit, this usually does draw a laugh or two) then this may indeed be your cup of Irish breakfast tea. And the idea of hiding your heist -- a truckload of Viagra -- in the local well from which the little village's famous holy water is drawn, also would appear to have some comic potential.

Director Reeve, shown at right, and screenwriter O'Mahony, however, are only so-so in the mining-of-laughs department. Their tale, which takes place in a lovely and bucolic seaside village from which the lovelorn like to leap to their death, involves a crew of those "delightful village rogues" that have graced Irish imports for, what? -- at least half a century now. One of the more deservedly successful was 1998s Waking Ned Devine, and the most recent of which is probably Grabbers, the rather amazing monster-movie-in-an-Irish-seaside-village, complete with a raft of funny characters. Hard Times is nowhere near the level of either film, but it manages to touch the hem of their garments, so to speak.

Though it boasts a good cast -- led by John Lynch (on poster, top, and above, left, as one of those "nuns"), who provides by far the most fun -- what that cast must deal with is a so-so script and direction that dawdles, at best, and really holds things up, at worst. Audiences who watch a lot of movies will find themselves way ahead of the plot twists most of the time. (The Pfizer truck supposedly loaded with Viagra plays quite a large role in the proceedings, though the credits tell us that Pfizer absolutely had no part in this film. Really? The product placement alone must have sold a ton of those little blue pills.)

Also along for the ride are Linda Hamilton (above, left) and Tommy "Tiny" Lister (above, center), as American security personnel come to "fix" things. They don't, of course, and everything they do do is telegraphed a week ahead of time.

There's romance blooming here and there, and once the Viagra begins releasing into the water source, there's the expected rutting. It's all fairly funny, but you can write the script yourself as you move along. Religion (above) takes its licks, gently, and we even get some mild, would-be gay humor, plus a little nudity, sort of....

Hard Times -- running 93 minutes and with English subtitles, in case the dialect's too thick -- is available now via Netflix streaming and perhaps elsewhere, too.

Funniest monster movie in a decade? Yes, if you can deal with thick Irish accents: Jon Wright and Kevin Lehane's irrepressible GRABBERS streams

Whoever came up with the idea for GRABBERS -- the just-now streaming movie released in the USA via IFC Midnight -- deserves free drinks for the rest of his or her life. This is one of those utterly inspired riffs on the good old-fashioned monster movie that takes the genre places we've not yet seen. The premise is so good, in fact, that I hesitate to give it away here. I'll just say that, as one of the movie's many clever posters (at left) suggests, "enjoy irresponsibly" -- if that gives you any clue. Written by Kevin Lehane and directed by Jon Wright (pictured below), the film takes awhile to get going, but once the gears are set in motion, there is no stopping this funny, frisky, grizzly, gory, thoroughly enjoyable genre-jumping comedic monster movie.

This film has a lot in common with Edgar Wright's recent The World's End in its love of alcohol and aliens, and yet the two movies are also quite different. (For one thing, E. Wright's has close to ten times the budget of J. Wright's). Beginning at sea, below, when something from space crashes into the ocean around Ireland and the crew of a nearby fishing vessel suddenly disappears, we know we're in for trouble. Mr Wright has a fine time building up suspense and finally letting us in on the space travelers' agenda and vulnerability. The only real problem here: those pesky Irish accents. Normally, when the dialog grows uncomfortably difficult to understand, we would simply turn on the English subtitles via Netflix streaming.

When we did that on this film, turns out the all the subtitles appeared in UPPER CASE BOLD -- which is more difficult to read quickly and takes up a lot more space than when upper and lower case letters are used. And with a film this dialog-heavy (you know those yakety-yak Irish!), this meant that sometimes half the screen was filled with subtitles -- which soon proved so annoying we turned them off. Then we did the best we could with our aging ears and probably missed around one-quarter of the verbiage on display, some of which is pretty damn funny. And we still enjoyed the film.

Grabbers, my friends, is an alcoholic's dream come true, for reasons you'll eventually learn. So when the travelers in that space ship begin terrorizing the little town, the townspeople take the proper measures, resulting in one of the funnier several scenes you will have seen in movies of late. There is irony here aplenty, and thankfully it is not underscored but simply adds to the delight.

The able cast is talented and lots of fun, the pacing is just fine (the movie lasts only 94 minutes) and the special effects are surprisingly good. No, they're ever better than that. This is not just a well created and executed pair of monsters. Even their offspring are delightfully thought-out, too. The scene in which those little guys destroy the town bar -- just like we remember from so many western movies -- is simply terrific.

Best of all, Wright and Lehane know their movie clichés well and so are able to upend them often enough to keep us happily on our toes. Which characters survive -- and why -- is always a fun guessing-game in films like this, and so it is once again. The romance (above) -- yes, there's one of those, too -- is handled better than most in this genre, as is the inevitable and final battle with Mr. Big, below. (I do wish they could have found some better way to deal with the last denouement cliché, though. A movie this good deserves a better send-off.)

Grabbers can be streamed on Netflix now, as well as on Amazon Instant Video and on DVD. Monster buffs will flock, of course, but I'll bet some of you who don't necessarily enjoy this sort of film will buy in, too.

On-Demand: With HAPPY EVER AFTERS Stephen Burke tackles two odd weddings

Sally Hawkins is an unusual actress in that she seems not to mind allowing herself to look pretty awful much of the time. No raving beauty, she can still be quite attractive, though we get only glimpses of this in films such as Happy Go Lucky, in which she created her biggest stir so far. Just recently she's been seen in Never Let Me Go, playing the teacher who gives her strange pupils their first dose of "reality," and she'll soon cause another stir in Made in Dagenham, playing the leader of the protest that eventually gave British women the right to equal pay. Folk who are fans of Ms Hawkins (TM counts himself as one such) can catch her these days on VOD in a middling rom-com featuring the ever-popular wedding theme -- times two.

HAPPY EVER AFTERS, the semi-new Irish film from writer/director Stephen Burke, was given its first theatrical release in France in 2009 (hence the poster, above) and has the not-bad idea of conflating two weddings: that of Ms Hawkins character to a strapping and sophisticated black man and her co-star Tom Riley (shown at bottom) to a young woman (played by Jade Yourell ) whom he's already been married to and divorced from. Each couple's post-ceremony reception takes place in the same hotel at the same time -- which makes for all kinds of surprises and misunderstandings, many of these farcical but unfortunately not handled with a particularly sure comedic touch.

Involved in these goings-on are a wealth of characters -- from Hawkin's young and noticeably "fatherless" daughter to various relatives, friends and -- in the case of Riley's bride-to-be-again -- a group of funny ladies she meets in a pub who then tag along for the ride. Much of the humor come from Mr. Riley again and again being placed into what appear to be compromising positions involving the character played by Ms Hawkins.

 
A little of this goes a long way, and, in any case, this kind of thing needs crack comedic timing from the actors and particularly the director, who unfortunately simply keeps his cameras going and leaves the actors on their own. The interesting thing is that they are all, finally, good enough to keep us involved and relatively well-entertained. By the film's finale, after we've spent 24 hours (of movie time) with these characters and dawn has just broken, the cast have become a bit like old friends.  "Seems like we've been with these people for a long time," my companion noted, with some surprise, "and I don't mean that in a bad way."

Early on, the movie may seem a bit rocky, but stick with Happy Ever Afters, and you'll probably be glad you did. Although where can you see it?  That's the question.  The film is apparently available via IFC On Demand -- even though IFC appears to have neglected to mention the film anywhere on its web site or in its marketing. I checked my local reception provider, Time Warner Cable, how-ever, and found that it is indeed available. You might want to check with your local provider to make certain of its existence, as well.

Conor McPherson's genre-busting THE ECLIPSE gives Ciarán Hinds a worthy role

What to make of THE ECLIPSE, the new mash-up movie from Conor McPherson, a fellow better-known for legitimate theater than for film? While this new work, which McPherson directed and co-wrote (with Billy Roche, based on Mr. Roche's stories) is not likely to shift that balance from theater to film, I suspect it may prove the most popular of his movies so far. At least by an ounce or two. This artist, who may be Irish-popular, is not exactly American-mainstream, though here he gives us shocks 'n scares, romance n' family, and a fight scene that's as good -- and original -- as any in recent memory.

There's a lightness of tone, if not event, to The Eclipse, plus a sense that its characters will somehow be able to negotiate their rather strange world, that places this particular McPherson work (the filmmaker is pictured at right) firmly in the realm of comedy, as opposed to tragedy, as Shakespeare would understand those terms. This unusual tone sprinkles a kind of fairy dust over the proceedings that allows us to accept jolts of horror (I haven't heard a press audience scream like this in quite some time) along with romance, sadness, and lighthearted moments with surprising equanimity & enjoyment.

Death (of beloved family members) hovers over the film, as does the need to accept this and, however uneasily and eventually, move on. I believe it is this theme that grounds the movie and allows the audience, as do the characters, to wrestle with some very odd goings-on. The other factor that welds it all together is actor Ciarán Hinds (shown above and bottom, right) who has rarely had this full or interesting a character with which to work.  As usual, Hinds gives his all -- and it's more than enough. This actor possesses such gravity and yet manages not to weigh us down with it; he's always a pleasure to watch as he "lives" each role. 

Iben Hjejle (shown left, a Danish actress we don't see often enough over here: High Fidelity, Mifune) provides the romantic interest, offering a keen intelligence, coupled to wariness, that fits her mature beauty like a rough glove. Completing the triangle is Aidan Quinn (below), who, after his recent role in Dark Matter (a film you really should see), now appears to be the go-to guy for sleazy, snarky, you-love-to-hate-him roles.  (This is a compliment, Mr. Quinn.)  He is so believable as the egotistical author at the center of the Writers' Conference that brings these three characters together that he is likely to give certain best-selling authors a very bad rep.

So how does McPherson manage to scare the scream out of us in a movie that proves every bit as romantic, charming and sorrowful as it is frightening.  Surprise, of course, which is not that difficult to achieve, but the filmmaker also uses suspense to twist out our fear, once we know something is afoot.  The photography (Ivan McCullough) and editing (Emer Reynolds) certainly help matters, but I think the main reason is that McPherson sets his ghost(s) against such everyday scenes as the beautiful and green natural world, the seaside, and a group of homey, likable characters struggling with the very problems we find in so many other dramas.  This gives the specters, even if they do proceed from the mind of the Hinds character, added credibility -- as does the discussion between Hinds & Hjejle (who plays a popular writer of ghost stories) regarding the how and why of these apparitions -- who offer fright, yes, but also solace.

In any case, if you give over to this film (which does not even require the kind of suspension of disbelief that do so many other "scare" movies), I suspect you will have a fine time of it and may well conclude, upon the film's conclusion, that Mr. McPherson has created something very nearly sui generis.

The Eclipse begin its exclusive theatrical run in New York City at the Angelika Film Center and at Laemmle Theaters all over the Los Angeles area on March 26, with the nationwide, limited rollout beginning in April.  Click here for all dates, cities and theaters.  Simultaneous with its theatrical run, the film is appearing On-Demand, so if your home screen is large enough to accommodate McPherson's vision, check your local TV-reception provider regarding availability.

DVDebut: Peter Lennon's ROCKY ROAD TO DUBLIN arrives via Icarus Films

Ireland of a half-century past is the subject of the newly restored and unmissable (if you have any interest in that country then and now) documentary ROCKY ROAD TO DUBLIN, made by a then-young filmmaker named Peter Lennon.  Since 1968 when the film was first seen -- to much acclaim, at Cannes -- Mr. Lennon appears to have made his living somewhere other than in the world of film, as his IMDB profile is, well, short.  No matter. This single work of his (so far, at least: He says he wants to return to film-making) will remain important to Ireland, and to the art of the documentary.

What surprises TrustMovies most about this 69-minute film is how full of energy it is, how alert and alive it -- and everyone in it -- seem.   RR2D is also full of insight, some of this rather sad, considering how much and how little seem to have changed for the country in the course of the 40-plus years since filming took place.  Lennon gives us a good dose of Irish history from the decades prior to the 1960s and then shows us Irish life -- the poor, the gentry, the middle class; and the changing face of culture, politics, youth, women and the church. 

Lennon, affectionate but also stern and incisive, focuses at length on Irish censorship and how this stifles creativity, continually causing the best of the country's artists to depart its shores.  We hear at length from one of its censors, a clearly troubled old man who tries to foresee the coming changes but can barely wrap his mind around them.

One of the things that helps the documentary remain timely is its look at what happens when church and state grow far too cozy. When that church in question is Irish Catholic, troubles just seem to mount.  Of course, as we see, the church itself was trying to change back in the 60s, and so we find ourselves confronted with a relatively young priest (above) and his quietly presumptive ego who sings soft rock and folk songs to entertain his parishioners.  But when he rambles on at length about marriage and the like, we also understand how little the church philosophy has really changed.  (But wait: What we learn about this fellow in "The Making of" documentary that accompanies the film does change our view considerably -- though not necessarily for the better.)

Feminism, Irish version at least, if not on the rise at this time was nonetheless beginning to bud.  We hear the voice of a young married woman trying to explain herself as she wrestles with her own needs as well as those of her husband, the church and that oh-so-reliable means of birth control: the withdrawal method. Lennon speedily mixes old newsreels and photos with talking heads and scenes of life being lived in the bars and dance halls.  It's a heady concoction, ensuring that our attention never flags. And then it's over, the final splendid scene being one of Irish children running and running toward....  the future, perhaps?

The cinematographer of this little gem is none other than the great Frenchman Raoul Coutard, who does a fine job of capturing the moment, up-close or distanced.  How Coutard came to shoot the film is part of what makes The Making of (shot by Paul Duane) that accompanies the main feature such a treat.  The history of RR2D is very nearly as interesting as the film itself, and Lennon and Coutard reunite to reminisce about the movie and its debut and Cannes and elsewhere. (Coutard's remarks about giving up smoking are hilarious and explain perhaps why his fruitful collaboration with François Truffaut suddenly ended.)

Not being Irish, if you'd asked me prior to watching the movie and its companion piece, if I had any interest in it, I'd have probably said no. Don't you make that same mistake. Rocky Road to Dublin -- which made its DVD debut this week from Icarus Films -- is one whopping good piece of documentary film-making, not to mention an amazing time-capsule of a people and an era.  You can purchase it from Icarus itself or from Amazon, and soon, I hope, rent it from your favorite video source (as of this writing, Netflix lists it as "Saved: release date unknown").

All photos courtesy of Icarus Films, and yes, 

that last one is indeed John Huston, 

photographed while in Ireland making a film 

and telling the Irish why they should be making their own films.