Directed by Margaret Corkery, Starring Robert Donnelly, Amy Kirwan, Darren Healy, David Martin
AFTER A recent run of dire Irish releases, it’s a pleasure to welcome this highly original and tonally assured, if somewhat slight, debut feature from Margaret Corkery.
Largely set in and around a windy Wicklow beach, Eamondetails the complex, sometimes queasy interactions between a young boy (Robert Donnelly), his unfocused mother (Amy Kirwan) and her permanently grumpy partner (Darren Healy).
We begin with Grace, mother of the mischievous Eamon, receiving the keys to a holiday cottage from her disapproving mother. Almost broke, the dysfunctional threesome make their way to the quaint, if basic cabin for a few days of bickering, boozing and casual surrealism. The adults get in a fight with a barman. Eamonbecomes part of a nauseatingly enthusiastic youth leader's gambolling posse. Faint hints of casual menace gather over the unwelcoming Irish Sea.
On one level, the film is an amusing sketch of a class of superseded Irish holiday that few adults remember with any fondness: bad food, miserable pubs, too many grudgingly purchased soft drinks. More seriously, Eamongets to grips with the unspoken hostility, born of intrusion, that often simmers between young children and their inexperienced parents.
But the film works best as an exercise in creative absurdity. Boosted by clean, primary-hued camerawork from Paki Smith and wistful music by Colin J Morris– alternately strummy and ambient – Eamonhas barely enough plot to fill its 85 minutes, but the sincerity of its makers' intent is never in doubt. A promising start.
