Aidan Gillen plays a wayward prisoner given compassionate release to look after his orpahned niece Stacey - a great Lauren Kinsella - in his lowkey debut from director Mark Noonan.
Quirky and low key are the bywords in this debut feature from Galway writer/director Mark Noonan. Aidan Gillen, blithely ignoring WC Fields’ injunction about working with children and animals, plays Will, a prisoner who’s given a shot at redemption when he’s granted compassionate release to look after Stacey, his recently orphaned 10-year-old niece.
That storyline may have something of a Capraesque quality about it but Noonan’s film is immersed in a particularly Irish mix of sadness and dark humour. The action mostly takes place in a caravan park in the Midlands. In winter. It’s a grim setting which Fr Ted has already wrung dry for maximum naffness and despair and cinematographer Tom Comferford doesn’t shrink from capturing the desolate beauty of the landscape in washed out greys and browns.
Gillen’s Will is a taciturn type and he struggles to keep his parole officer happy while becoming a reluctant father figure to Stacey, who is naturally acting out following her mother’s death.
The pair take off to a caravan park which serves as a halfway house of sorts for their potential new life together and from there, Noonan’s film tends to trundle along in fits and starts over its slight 78 minute running time. First Stacey is turned down by the local school because of her sudden on-set narcolepsy; then Will’s boredom and recidivism sees him drink and drug too much when he should be growing into his new father figure role.
The dialogue, some of which was ad-libbed, is smart and spiky. Real emotions are expressed in a amusing mix of sarcasm, flippancy and meaningful silences. It’s a muted, occasionally heart warming watch and a very Irish kind of sadness and dark humour hangs over it. Gillen and Kinsella are excellent and Noonan is a name to watch for.
Alan Corr
