Booze, crime and family on Dublin’s mean streets
We’re in a golden era of Irish film. While the recent rise in quality has not being reflected at the box office (outside of The Stag,
Mrs Brown’s Boys and The Hardy Bucks Movie) there has been a glut of stunning films tackling tough issues by directors with strong styles and voices. Directors like Dónal Foreman
( Out Of Here), Ivan Kavanagh ( Fading Light, The Canal), Frank Berry ( I Used To Live
Here – still in cinemas), Terry McMahon ( Patrick’s Day), Lenny Abrahamson ( What Richard Did), and Brendan Muldowney ( Love
Eternal) to name but a few. Writer-director Gerard Barrett is another. His Glassland (15A)
HHHHH, a follow up to 2013’s
Pilgrim Hill, is a must-see. Jack Reynor’s John makes ends meet as a cab driver traversing the seedier streets of Dublin. With an older brother and father not in the picture, and younger brother Kit (Harry Nagle) with Down Syndrome, it’s left to John to care for his alcoholic mother Jean (Toni Collette).
When Jean enters a detox facility run by Jim (Michael Smiley,
Kill List) John’s finances are stretched and he agrees to a gangster proposal that he ferry foreign prostitutes to dangerous clients.
It’s a movie that exists within introspective moments. The pace and tone is set with the opening scene – Jack Reynor whiling away the morning in bed, mindlessly picking at the wall by his headboard. With movies usuallly trying to get to the point as fast as possible, Barrett is brave enough to take time to show characters think- ing. Another gripping scene has a drunk Collette come to realise something horrible about herself during a drunken monologue, confessing with brutal honesty that she never connected with Kit, nor did she want to. It’s not nice but it’s life.
Glassland is not all grim, with light relief coming from John’s buddy Shane (Will Poulter, The
Maze Runner). With a Dublin accent that’s bang-on, the English actor’s natural banter with Reynor provides great laughs and he is the catalyst for the much-needed tenderness of the film’s best scene. Barrett’s next film, Brain On
Fire (an adaptation of Susannah Cahalan’s best-selling memoir), is out next year and will star Charlize Theron and Dakota Fanning. This meteoric rise is no fluke. Gerard Barrettistherealdealand Glassland is touching and engaging.