An Irish Goodbye

CinemaSerf

2023-02-11

70%

Paddy Jenkins ("Father O'Shea") acts well as the conduit here between two brothers who are unexpectedly reunited by the death of their mother. "Turlough" (Seamus O'Hara) has left Northern Ireland to work in Engand and when he returns, is set on selling the family home still lived in by his younger brother "Lorcan" who has Down Syndrome. As you'd expect, the humour here is dark ("is she still warm?") and the language quite ripe, but this has a wonderful honesty to it as the latter lad tries to work his way through a list of one hundred things their mum wanted to do before she died! There's some fun with an urn and some ti-chi, and they even go into space - well, sort of! Good fun with strong undercurrents of family, love and affection.

Peter McGinn

2023-04-04

80%

This is a comedy-drama that is not only short but small, with just three characters and a voiceover. The two brothers grew on me quickly and the quirky priest was certainly no cliched character. The humor ranges from slapstick to subtle and back again. It contains a minor twist that I didn’t see coming but still was believable. It is worth 20+ minutes of your time, and how different to have the end credits take only a minute or less?!