Matt Shea
RubySoho
Morgan Bell
Cibbuano
David O'Connell
Mountain Fog
A Film With Me In It
April 17th 2009 21:50
Whenever I tell people the name of this movie, they light up and say "Oh, you're in the movie?" - this might have been the sneaky ambition of the screenwriter, Mark Doherty, who made a film with him in it.
That the film starts out with the aimless life of Mark, living in his girlfriend, Sally, and his paralyzed brother, David, is depressing. That Mark is a wildly unsuccessful actor and Sally pays the bills by working in sandwich shop, that's despair.
Somehow it's all made much, much worse by the fact that the little basement flat they live in is past the line of disrepair and is actually ramshackle, to use a word that I have never before written.
Mark finds some small joy in hanging with his shabby, boozy friend, Pierce, played by Dylan Moran, another wildly unsuccessful his soul. They sit on park benches and drive out to the sea, looking at that endless vista of roughly clapping waves, meeting at the sky in a hazy banner of blue and grey.
"A Film With Me In It", up to this point, is a bleak look at the lives of people at the bottom, with no way up and no ambition left to even turn in the direction of up. It's mildly funny, as the production is from Ireland, and the Irish have a savvy sense of grim humour.
Yes, up to this point, the film could even be an examination of lost dreams and squandered hopes.
Then the outrageous happens.
And then it becomes more outrageous, followed by a series of events that put the film so far beyond outrageous that mere outrage would seem like behaviour suitable for dull Parliamentary sessions.
To tell you what happens would be cruel punishment, as I gasped and reeled in uproarious laughter. "A Film With Me In It" is rightly called a black comedy - we shouldn't laugh but, between the script and the fantastic direction, the film is unreasonably funny.
Here is where Moran does best... channeling his Bernard Black persona, fumbling and spewing terrible suggestions, even as the situation becomes all the more horrible.
Director Ian Fitzgibbon has obviously put love and care into the making of the film, with strenuous care taken to produce a visually engaging film. Recently, I criticized Danny Boyle for overuse of the Dutch angle, but Fitzgibbons also uses the technique, albeit in suitable manner. When events become so surreal that the characters themselves question the reality of it, the Dutch angle is a perfect complement to that near step into the craggy chasm of insanity.
By the conclusion of the film, the audience has become so thoroughly satisfied that we left, smirking into the afternoon sun. I laughed so much that I forgot about lunch - that's an event that is nearly as outrageous as that presented in "A Film With Me In It".
I say: "A Film With Me In It" is a terribly funny film, and quite excellent on most counts. Hopefully, it's a film that will attract audiences in Australia, as I think Aussies will really appreciate the painful comedy on offer.
See it for: I didn't know what to expect, but Moran delivers, with a standout performance as a filthy "waste of a man".
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