Movie Reviews
So who are all these people, all these stories? Most of them you won�t recognize because they�ve either been in too few movies, or they only make films in Europe. This all takes place is Ireland with thick, thick accents and actors we�ve never seen. You will notice Colin Farrell and maybe Cillian Murphy (�28 Days Later�), and if you�re extremely observant Shirley Henderson, who was Moaning Murtle in the second �Harry Potter� movie. But other than that, unless you really know you�re stuff, this is all brand new.
Farrell plays a petty thief named Lehiff. Murphy and David Wilmot are John and Oscar, two friends who hate their lives, their job, and, more notably, their boss. Colm Meaney is a conceited cop name Jerry who thinks himself to be the best cop to have ever lived. He persuades a documentary filmmaker to make a film about his life �on the streets�. Brian F. O�Byrne is the filmmaker. Deirdre O�Kane is Noeleen, a twenty-something woman who stole a man from his wife. Her sister is Shirley Henderson, who plays Sally, a girl desperate for approval. The irony there is that she�s her worst critic. Kelly Macdonald is Deirdre, the woman whose husband was stolen from her from Noeleen. Those are the main characters.
I leave you there because one of the joys of watching �Intermission� is to find out how all these people connect. What�s amazing about it is that in all those directors I mentioned up above, none of them have nearly as many characters to handle as we have here. By the end I was forced to bandage my jaw from hitting the ground so hard.
Writer Mark O�Rowe and director John Crowley are a promising new team. I admire this film, more than anything else, for its ability to use drastic and sometimes brutal situations to produce laughter. Almost all these characters are tangled up in love � desperate for someone to love them back, but caught in that darn unrequited part of it. So apart from being pulsing at times, and gut-burstingly funny the rest of the time, this is also a story of love, and how far people will go to get it. That in itself is funny because the poster for �Intermission� would lead to think it something totally different.
Looking back at it now, I find it amazing how well �Intermission� works out. It�s really so complex that it shouldn�t work at all, but this writer and director are well aware of that; in fact they take full advantage of it, which is what is so surprisingly original about it. From start to finish, �Intermission� is fast, funny, and nothing short of extraordinary. ****