As an Irishman myself I love watching and supporting Irish film, especially gritty "man on the street" style films with relatable characters. I was excited to see this, a lot, and as the title of my review implies, there were some compelling moments, but too few IMO.
While I was impressed with the humanity, the bonds between characters and how genuine they felt, it wasn't very often I felt the film had a compelling watchability to it, it felt real but never much compelling viewing from start to finish, except for one scene.
The scene where his mother won't go into the clinic, and John tells her why it's so important to him that she does. Not only is the performance here great, but its a moment the audience gets to understand John's inner fears, dreams, anxieties in a compelling way. It was a great mix powerfully driven and wonderfully performed. The problem is there are few too little scenes like this, and it's really down to the writing. No other scene feels nearly as good as this.
Once the Dr. in the hospital tells John his mother is killing herself and he needs to find help for her, the film really slows down, there isn't that impending pace to it that was needed to show that time was running out for his mother, her death is a consequence that isn't set up to be impending, so theres no intense pacing to the film, it needed that, like she's on the brink of death. No, she'll be fine for another while. I think that's why people were complaining of pacing issues with the film.
I remember watching this film a second time the other night and when the aforementioned scene came along my senses lit up...and then turned off for pretty much the rest of the film.
I though there were some interesting camera moves, like at the end in the derelict mansion where John spots the prostitute in the bath and we the audience rush toward him in an unbroken take to see it too from over John's shoulder was really nice. John's friend didn't have much to do as a subplot character, so it felt a little tacked on, as did John's brother Kitt.
The way this film could have been more compelling is increasing John's struggle getting his mother to accept help, accept her family (Kitt) and not be about finding the money to pay for her help as the opposition, there's less emotion in finding money than bringing a loved one back to reality about their illness/family rejection. Plus the conflict around getting the cash to pay for his mothers help seemed pretty easy, one phone call and there you have it, 8k. Now I get that what was asked of him at the end was harrowing, scary even, but by that stage Johns goal is already achieved and John life is now the stakes, and thats not what this film was ever about.
All the backstory and motivation for the mother's disease (alcohol abuse) is in one big exposition dump and just was not compelling. Her performance was not her best IMO, when she gets really upset in the kitchen and lashes out on John it verged on OTT and comical, like something out of a comedy.
One thing that didn't make sense to me was why John was needed by the gangster in the scenes of him dropping off the prostitute. Why didn't the gangster just have her get a taxi as normal, I assume John was getting paid above normal for that service, but why, any taxi man could of been used. It wasn't a powerful setup to how dark and dangerous his side job was.
All in all, some good moments with believable relationships but lacked the intensity and compellingness as it needed stronger story structure and setup.
While I was impressed with the humanity, the bonds between characters and how genuine they felt, it wasn't very often I felt the film had a compelling watchability to it, it felt real but never much compelling viewing from start to finish, except for one scene.
The scene where his mother won't go into the clinic, and John tells her why it's so important to him that she does. Not only is the performance here great, but its a moment the audience gets to understand John's inner fears, dreams, anxieties in a compelling way. It was a great mix powerfully driven and wonderfully performed. The problem is there are few too little scenes like this, and it's really down to the writing. No other scene feels nearly as good as this.
Once the Dr. in the hospital tells John his mother is killing herself and he needs to find help for her, the film really slows down, there isn't that impending pace to it that was needed to show that time was running out for his mother, her death is a consequence that isn't set up to be impending, so theres no intense pacing to the film, it needed that, like she's on the brink of death. No, she'll be fine for another while. I think that's why people were complaining of pacing issues with the film.
I remember watching this film a second time the other night and when the aforementioned scene came along my senses lit up...and then turned off for pretty much the rest of the film.
I though there were some interesting camera moves, like at the end in the derelict mansion where John spots the prostitute in the bath and we the audience rush toward him in an unbroken take to see it too from over John's shoulder was really nice. John's friend didn't have much to do as a subplot character, so it felt a little tacked on, as did John's brother Kitt.
The way this film could have been more compelling is increasing John's struggle getting his mother to accept help, accept her family (Kitt) and not be about finding the money to pay for her help as the opposition, there's less emotion in finding money than bringing a loved one back to reality about their illness/family rejection. Plus the conflict around getting the cash to pay for his mothers help seemed pretty easy, one phone call and there you have it, 8k. Now I get that what was asked of him at the end was harrowing, scary even, but by that stage Johns goal is already achieved and John life is now the stakes, and thats not what this film was ever about.
All the backstory and motivation for the mother's disease (alcohol abuse) is in one big exposition dump and just was not compelling. Her performance was not her best IMO, when she gets really upset in the kitchen and lashes out on John it verged on OTT and comical, like something out of a comedy.
One thing that didn't make sense to me was why John was needed by the gangster in the scenes of him dropping off the prostitute. Why didn't the gangster just have her get a taxi as normal, I assume John was getting paid above normal for that service, but why, any taxi man could of been used. It wasn't a powerful setup to how dark and dangerous his side job was.
All in all, some good moments with believable relationships but lacked the intensity and compellingness as it needed stronger story structure and setup.