DANCING AT LUGHNASA |
| CREDITS: Director: Pat O'Connor. Cast: Meryl Streep, Michael Gambon, Catherine
McCormick, Kathy Burke, Brid Brennan, Sophie Thompson, Rhys Ifans, Lorcan Cranitch,
Darrell Johnston & John Kavanagh. Ireland/UK/USA 1998. INTRODUCTION: The film chosen for the closing gala of the 14th Birmingham International Film and Television Festival managed to draw in quite a crowd, including the Lord Mayor of Birmingham despite the fact that it had the wrong time and venue listed in the brochure. SYNOPSIS: The spinster Mundy sister, Kate (Streep), Maggie (Burke), Agnes (Brennan), Rose (Thompson) & Christina (McCormick) lead an idyllic existence living together in '30s rural Donegal along with Christina's bastard son Michael (Johnston). Their lives are turned upside down by the arrival of two men - their older brother Father Jack (Gambon) who has been away on missionary work in Africa for the past 25 years and Michael's itinerant father Gerry Evans (Ifans). As they approach the Celtic festival Lugh, the god of light, they must face up to the encroaching twentieth century with only a battered Marconi wireless as a guide. REVIEW: Brian Friels' critically acclaimed play was awarded an Evening Standard award, an Olivier award and three Tony awards during its 1992 run, it seems unlikely however that Frank McGuiness' big screen adaptation will do quite as well. O'Connor, more accustomed to traditional Oirish fare such as "Circle of Friends", seems ill at ease with the decidedly darker material he has to work with here, taking any opportunity possible to flow off on a panoramic shot of the rolling Irish countryside, he soon loses grasp of the complex characters and their interrelations. Streep is technically brilliant, adding another accent to her wide repertoire, but emotionally unengaging as Kate the matriarch of the family. Gambon puts in an accomplished performance as the Alzheimer's addled priest. Rising starlet McCormick puts in a performance that easily matches her stalwart co-stars. While the rest of the cast are wasted, especially Burke, who, Waynetta Slob aside, is quickly establishing herself as one of England's finest emerging actresses. Deserving of special mention are Ifans who shows a range that was only previously hinted at in "Twin Town", Brennan who tackles the difficult role of the retarded Rose with relish and Johnston who makes a stunning debut. This unconventional family are living at a time when the old and new worlds collide, as exemplified in the person of Father Carlin (Kavanagh) and his opposite number the pagan Danny Bradley (Cranitch). All they have is each other to cling to, as they face up to redundancy and prejudice under the combined regimes of repressive Catholicism and emerging capitalism that threaten to tear them apart. While the specifics of the Mundy's life are very much rooted in their time and place, the themes explored of love, community, and fear of the future are timeless, which along with the excellent performances make this film eminently watchable despite its flaws. The film does seem to some extent to justify Friels' criticism of cinema that lead him to pass screen writing duties to fellow play-write McGuiness, but for all its faults O'Connor does manage to resist the standard happy ending, providing a welcome alternative to the Hollywood weepie. Besides the Lord Mayor seemed to enjoy it, so it can't be all bad, can it? An unhappy medium of Irish and Oirish film. Mutt's Rating: *** |