To be sure, it’s Irish overload
IT’S COMEDIC BUT PECULIAR, ROMANTIC YET FRUSTRATING, AND IRISH TO ITS CORE
WILD MOUNTAIN THYME (PG)
Director: John Patrick Shanley (Doubt)
Starring: Emily Blunt, Jamie Dornan, Christopher Walken, Jon Hamm
Rating:
Too Irish, to be sure
From its opening milliseconds to its final frame, Wild Mountain Thyme is all Irish, all the time.
In fact, the movie is so hellbent on dousing Ireland-loving viewers in its overproof Irishness, some will feel as if they are being repeatedly dunked in a Dublin swimming pool filled with Bailey’s Irish Cream.
Ten minutes into Wild Mountain Thyme, the “Oirish” factor has already multiplied to unfeasible levels. The grass is way too green. The Guinness way too brown. The behaviour way too wacky. The voices way too lilting.
The possibility that a lengthy line of pipe-smoking leprechauns will suddenly materialise and then gaily Riverdance across the screen never, ever goes away.
You wish for a world where it is St Patrick’s Day every day? Leaving Wild Mountain Thyme on aroundthe-clock repeat could be as close as you’re ever gonna get.
The screenplay detonates a controlled explosion of woozy whimsy around its two romantically linked protagonists, both of whom are so obviously made for each other that they have made a mess out of ever getting together.
Anthony (Jamie Dornan) is a farmer’s son. He likes donkeys and drinking. Rosemary (Emily Blunt) is a farmer’s daughter. She likes horses and smoking.
This pair have been living on neighbouring properties for three decades, and are yet to move past an unfortunate incident where one is believed to have pushed the other over. This occurred when they were both 10 years old.
Anthony and Rosemary do not get along like a house on fire. They get along like a house that has already been burnt to the ground. Therefore it is going to be left to the winds of fate – and a few strong gusts of unlikely coincidence – to blow these two within kissing range.
Waiting for this simple task to be completed will severely test the patience of those who don’t quite get the peculiar sense of humour informing the comedy aspect of the picture.
Even if that does not prove to be a problem, the ever-changing Irish accent used by Christopher Walken (who plays Anthony’s obstinate old man) could be a deal-breaker.
Wild Mountain Thyme is now showing in general release.
THE NEST (MA15+)
This faintly haunting, consistently unsettling drama squeezes and releases its audience like a concertina. This addling effect at work throughout the movie is executed with the greatest of (un)ease thanks to two unfailingly precise lead performances. Jude Law plays Rory, a former high-flyer in British finance whose career in America has recently crashed and burned. Now he’s back home, trying to bluff his way back into the big time by passing himself off as the greatest deal-making dynamo of them all. Carrie Coon is Allison, who has seen, heard and inhaled all of her husband’s bulldust many times before. Even though he’s wholly financed her new horsetraining business, plonked the kids in the poshest schools and moved the family into a country mansion, she can sense the whole charade could end any day now. That’s why Allison is secretly keeping a stash of cash in the attic, and seeking work as a labourer on a neighbouring estate. On it goes, with Rory rapidly talking the emptiest talk to anyone who’ll let him buy them dinner, and Allison dolefully walking the loneliest walk towards seemingly inevitable ruin. A disturbing study of a couple too slow to realise that living fast is not for them.
THE MARKSMAN (M) Rating:
General release.
It is going to take a whole lot more than a mere pandemic to stop the constant flow of Liam Neeson action-thrillers into cinemas. It feels as if these movies have been opening on a quarterly basis for well over a decade. Neeson looked pretty tired of the whole effect years ago. Obviously, these gigs are easy pay cheques, but with the expansion of the Neeson bank account has come a reduction of the Neeson acting skills. The veteran Irish actor keeps the emoting as economical as possible in his latest offering, the quality of which sits squarely in the middle of his latterday output. Neeson plays Jim, a recently widowed cattle rancher living on the edge of the Mexican border. Though not exactly a fan of the undocumented immigrants continually making the arduous crossing into his native Arizona, Jim is humane enough to lend a helping hand when required. Such as when an 11-year-old kid needs to escape the callous clutches of a murderous drugs cartel. While the rest just about writes itself, you can’t help but side with the codger and the kid as they make a desperate run for it.