Michael Inside
Cert: 15A; Now showing
Writer/director Frank Berry collaborated with Pathways, the service that works with former prisoners, to write this short, sharp and incredibly moving film. At the risk of sounding like a dope, the end result is almost Shakespearean and on a second viewing, I found it even more effective, and affective than the first time. It’s a very complete story, it tells itself and explains itself and the performances are all-round excellent.
Michael (Dafhyd Flynn) is 18 and lives on an estate in Dublin with his grandfather, Francis (Lalor Roddy). He hasn’t had a start full of aspiration but things can still go either way for Michael, he has been in trouble but he also has plans to train in social work. When he gets caught holding drugs for his friend’s brother, he is sent to prison for three months. It’s a tough environment and the protection he receives from David (Moe Dunford) is not without conditions. Life on the outside is not easy for Francis, either, but he tries so hard to make sure that once out of prison Michael will still have his chances.
Newcomer Dafhyd Flynn didn’t know what scenes he would be shooting from one day to the next, he was learning the lines and his story as he went along and Berry’s technique pays off.
Flynn is excellent, there’s a great supporting cast, Dunford is his reliable self but Lalor Roddy almost steals it.
It’s insightful and compassionate without ever being mawkish about people we perhaps all too easily choose to write off.