Sometimes your lucky and sometimes your not! I refer to
selecting an ‘unknown’ film to watch, you know the one, sounds good but your
not sure. To be honest I’ve been quite lucky with small budget independent
movies that have had almost non-existent distribution, generally only shown in
independent picture houses or at local film festivals. I can remember shouting
the praises for an Irish film directed by Lenny Abrahamson (What Richard Did 2012) called Garage (2007). Set and shot in Southern
Ireland, it’s about Josie a lonely good-natured petrol station attendant who
has worked at the crumbling garage for 20 years. His hapless searches for
intimacy over one-summer sees his little niche threatened and his life changed
forever. The Irish comedian, singer and
writer Pat Shortt, won a Best Actor Award for his role as Josie. This turned
out to be an extraordinary powerful film with a great funny/sad performance
from Shortt.
Treacle Jr is the cat! |
Not quite up to the standard of Garage, but well worth seeing all the same is Treacle Jr (2012)
directed and written by Jamie Thraves and starring Aidan Gillen (The
Dark Knight Rises 2012, Shadow
Dancer 2012, Blitz 2011),
Tom Fisher and Riann Steele, who like Fisher has mainly appeared on the small
screen in various television series.
The story involves a middle-aged man, Tom (Fisher), who walks
out on his wife and baby boy and a seemingly happy life in Birmingham with no
explanation. Throwing away both his credit cards and mobile phone he opts to
live rough on the streets of London. Alone in a park at night he is set upon by
a gang of violent thugs, in his bid to escape he accidentally runs into a tree
and knocks himself out. In A&E Tom meets an extremely happy, fast-talking
individual, Aidan (Gillen) the complete opposite of Tom. Too polite, or too
weak to ask him to leave him alone Tom tries to get away from him but to no
avail, Aidan sticks to him like glue. Tom reluctantly becomes involved in
Aidan's life and he quickly realizes that this child like man clearly has his
own problems, except Aidan can't see them; his shiny optimism blinds him at
every turn, even from his 'girlfriend' the dangerous and volatile Linda
(Steele).[1]
Riann Steele. |
Thraves manages to obtain a wonderful judged performance
from the very versatile Gillen; a commendable actor who seems happy to jump
from big budget blockbuster to independent minimally financed films, he’s
totally convincing as the bizarrely accented and deranged Irish man who strikes
up an odd couple relationship with the middleclass dropout who appears to be
suffering some kind of midlife crisis that’s never really explained. The
director remortgaged his own house to make this very likeable slice of social
realism producing a movie that pull’s at the heartstrings, but also making you
laugh out loud.
The very versatile Aidan Gillen. |
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