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FILM Rory Kiberd Michael McDermott Jack O’Higgins
Shane O’Reilly David Turpin illustration Rob Torrans Extra Ordinary Directors: Mike Ahern and Enda Loughman Talent: Maeve Higgins, Barry Ward, Will Forte Released: 13 September “Why don’t we see ghosts every day. The truth is ghosts are around us all the time but most hauntings are so small they go unnoticed.” – The late Vincent Dooley (Risteard Cooper) explores the rare and supernatural gifts called ‘The Talents’ which his daughter (Maeve Higgins) inhabits and has to reconnect with in Extra Ordinary, D.A.D.D.Y.’s debut feature. Rose (Higgins), is a small town driving instructor, who is also blessed (or cursed, as she would see it) with the ability to speak to the dead. Her father had these abilities, known as “The Talents”, and, since he met a sticky end using his gifts, she has discontinued the family business of ghost whispering. Nevertheless, supernatural requests that are hilariously small scale keep coming in – haunted frying pans, tractors, rubbish bins, children’s bikes etc. The film opens with a cheesy video presentation about ghosts that evokes RTE of yesteryear, presented by Rose’s father (a noteperfect Risteard Cooper). Contrary to popular belief, he argues that ghosts are rather meek and ineffectual, although “even the weakest ghosts can possess cheese quite easily”. Rose’s resolve to stay retired gets tested by Martin (Ward), with whom she sympathises. Poor Martin is constantly getting henpecked by his deceased wife, who tells him what to wear and what to eat, essentially abusing him, her dominion a mainstay even beyond the grave. Meanwhile, in a nearby castle, Christian Winter, a washed up rockstar, plans to make a comeback by making a deal with the devil. In order to achieve this, he must sacrifice a virgin, and he has his sights on Martin’s daughter Sarah. Rose and Martin have to work together to save the girl, who is in captivity in a catatonic state. Visually striking, this film is properly cinematic, avoiding the usual laziness that can come with mainstream comedy. Certain scenes are reminiscent of Edgar Wright’s visual flair – indeed, small town provincialism and big scale thrills are mixed in a similar way to that of Hot Fuzz. Also, the film is not afraid to go gory at times – a throat The Souvenir Director: Joanna Hogg Talent: Honor Swinton-Byrne, Tom Burke, Tilda Swinton Released: 30 August Julie (Swinton-Byrne) is a film student in early 1980s London, earnestly attempting to fly the coop of her privileged upbringing by making a social realist feature. Her course is disrupted, however, when she enters a relationship with Anthony (Burke), an intriguingly dissolute sophisticate who claims to work for the Foreign Office. In the background, Julie’s mother (Swinton, in a coolly inscrutable bit of casting) makes concerned noises, very politely. In certain ways, Joanna Hogg’s exquisitely calibrated new feature evokes Henry James’ The Portrait of a Lady. Like James’ Isabel Archer, Julie finds herself drawn into a parasitic relationship not out of naivety alone, but out of a belief in the possibility of a broader world beyond that of her experience. The cruelty of the situation is that, in having the courage and intellectual curiosity to step out of their cosseted backgrounds, both heroines end up walking into far more restrictive traps. However – given the autobiographical nature of the material – it is not a spoiler to note that, happily, Julie’s outcome is less bleak than Isabel’s. In one particularly memorable scene, Anthony takes Julie to see Fragonard’s The Souvenir at the Wallace Collection. With this in mind, it would be easy to describe The Souvenir as a ‘perfect miniature’, or some such hogwash. This would be wrong on two levels. First, it’s not perfect: the evocation of period is a little contingent (watch the bookshelves, particularly); and the final shot feels a shade pat after the subtlety of what has preceded it. More importantly, though, The Souvenir isn’t a miniature at all. As specific as its subject matter may be, it feels expansive, mysterious – even unfathomable. It has a lingering, haunting quality upon which it is difficult to put one’s finger. Whatever it is, it’s unmissable. DT is slit, someone is disemboweled. That said, the abiding tone is one of sweetness and quotidian charm. Higgins and Ward are insanely likeable. Bringing much pathos, Higgins is like that best friend you have whose both comforting and raucously funny. You may remember her asking out random male members of the population in Naked Camera in the noughties. She plays a less desperate version of this persona bereft in love, but plucky, keeping her eyes peeled for an eligible man. Ward is similarly likeable, but he’s also a gladhand at doing characters – in order to help Rose exorcise certain objects, he is inhabited by spirits, even being possessed by his own chain-smoking wife later on. He can play a range of characters with great aplomb (not unlike James McAvoy in Split). What doesn’t quite work is Christian Winter, the villain played by Will Forte, who has been wonderful elsewhere. It feels like he’s been drafted in from another film. It’s like a SNL performance playing to the gallery, and sticks out all the more for how charming and low-key Higgins and Ward are. Also, there’s so much thrown at us and, of course, not all of it sticks. Some jokes are a bit flat and don’t really land, but many do, and so many other things work besides – likeable characters, great set-pieces, a comical eeriness that is reminiscent of What We Do In The Shadows. By the end, the film will have generated enough good-will for you to withstand a few howlers, and pleasingly, all the threads are brought together skilfully in the outrageous climactic scene, involving a very slowspeed chase and some public coitus. It’s edifying to watch a film that, for all its focus on the everyday, never feels small. RK The Kitchen Director: Andrea Berloff Talent: Melissa McCarthy, Tiffany Haddish, Elizabeth Moss, Domhnall Gleeson Release: 20 September It’s Hell’s Kitchen, New York, in the 1970’s. The three ring leaders of a small band of Irish American crooks are caught robbing a convenience store and sentenced to three years. Their respective wives Kathy (McCarthy), Claire (Moss) and Ruby (Haddish) have to find a way to make ends meet. Taking business into their own hands, the three women start running the rackets and establishing themselves as a force to be reckoned with. Andrea Berloff follows on from Steve McQueen’s 2018 film Widows with a film very much in a similar vein. McCarthy plays ringleader and is driven by pure survival, counting down the days to her husband’s release. Haddish and Moss’ characters are driven not only by survival but by the need to excel and control a small empire that will empower them and prohibit any further intervention from their abusive partners on their release. Theirs is a final chance to step out from under the shadows of the controlling figures in their lives. All three of the leads, and Domhnall Gleeson playing a gangster/ Vietnam veteran, are really very good here but they’re surrounded by a badly written supporting cast. Honourable mention has to go to Margo Martindale as the excruciating caricature of the Irish grandmother, the respected head of the family, and the tragically underused Annabella Sciorra as the Italian mob boss’ wife who’s initial lines of dialogue will haunt me. But what happened to the plot? Everything careens so fast. The Kitchen starts off well but quickly collapses under the weight of its soundtracked girl power montages, contrived plot mechanics and occasionally absurd script. It’s such a pity. What should have been the perfect vehicle for three megastars suffers under the contortions of its constantly meandering storyline that winds up with a faintly ridiculous ending. What started with a bang, ends with a wet fart. SOR 76