Recommended as a closely observed view of an exotic foreign locale, with well realized characters and buckets of entertaining chit-chat.
THE SNAPPER is a Stephen Frears film from 1993, and to my reckoning lies somewhere between the lands of comedy and drama. It's the second installment in Rody Doyle's Barrytown Trilogy, a set of novels (and films) which begins with THE COMMITMENTS and ends with THE VAN. All three take place in the same Dublin neighborhood, and feature many of the same characters. Colm Meany (a.k.a. "Star Trek's Colm Meany") is in all of them, and is arguably the star of this one.
It's the story of an oversized Irish family stuffed into a small, one-bathroom flat in a self-contained country village that's masquerading as a modern city neighborhood. Sharon is the 20-year-old eldest daughter who discovers she is pregnant, and the anticipated arrival of her little "snapper" is the basis of the plot.
No one seems to wrestle that much with the abortion question, which is perhaps a function of being Catholic and Irish. In fact, all involved take the situation pretty much in stride, and no one mentions the Magdalene alternative. There's an element of mystery in Sharon's refusal to identify the father, although people get used to that too, given time. Even Dad (Meany) is more interested in the details of the pregnancy itself, buying a book about women's sexuality that has him trying out some new tricks with his wife. ("And where did you learn that!" says his wife, giving him a slap to the head. "Out of a book, Kay! Out of a book!")
That's pretty much it, story wise. This is a film to see for its characters, who are warmly drawn if sometimes flawed and foolish. Even Sharon's man-eating friends are not too bad, since they're having so much fun at it. The folks in Barrytown are not as cute as the ones in WAKING NED DEVINE, but on the whole, that's probably a good thing.
One of the joys of NetFlix is the way it lets you program your own floating film festivals. This film is part of my ongoing Stephen Frears Retrospective, recently inspired by seeing DIRTY PRETTY THINGS for the first time. The festival will continue with MY BEAUTIFUL LAUNDRETTE, a film to which Ken and Pat introduced me back in the day. That one is still down the queue a ways, and it'll be interesting to see how I feel about it 20 years later.
Of course, THE COMMITMENTS is now on order, and THE VAN is on my watch list. The former is from Alan Parker, and the latter is also from Stephen Frears. Not available on DVD yet.
And all of this reminds me in a perverse way of the teachings of William Bly, who once said to me: "Everything is hypertext."
1 comment:
Indeed. Interesting primarily for me because it was a foreign movie... an exotic culture and social milieu.
I'm thinking I may need more subclasses of my 'Good' rating. I'd rate this one as 'Good and Forgettable'. Because I've mostly forgotten everything about the film but its Irish lower class sense-of-place. "The Commitments", on the other hand, is Recommended Entertainment. I own it, and re-view it... mostly for some exquisite scenes. 'Dirty Pretty Things', too, may be 'Good and Forgettable'. A 'Good and Memorable' rating may indicate a lingering impression of interest or quality that justifies a higher expenditure of energy to see.
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