An Irish Goodbye

All the attention this year has been on the banshees of inisherin, a plodding and wooden film, yet this short film was streets ahead. It shows the interaction between a dedicated but handicapped lad and his disinterested brother. The relationship is fantastic and james martin himself should have gotten an Oscar for his part. Brilliantly played. I deliberately gave it one star less than a full 10, as the film had the appearances that it was actually shortened, possibly to ensure it was classified as a short film. But it would have been great to have it stretched to at least an hour. Far more believable than the dire banshees.

An Irish Goodbye (2022) -

This was an amusing little film, but I'm not sure that I would call it comical, because it's actually how a lot of people do interact, although I suppose that the priest was at least a humorous character, with all of his errors and slips ups.

It was an enjoyable story of loss, love between brothers and how people move on in their grief.

Was it so outstanding a story that it deserved an Oscar? I don't know? I've seen a lot of short films and many that have delivered more of a punch, but perhaps I'm looking for something different from the films that I watch. However, I couldn't help but wonder if it wasn't awarded because one of the lead actors was otherwise abled.

Because of the farm setting and the somber tone of their Mothers death, I did feel that it bore some resemblance to 'Gods Own Country' (2017), although the two leads in that were obviously not brothers. It just had a similar vibe about it.

As with a lot of short films there just wasn't enough of it to really get in to, in order to see whether it was good or not, with an extended plot it could be very well received and genuinely entertaining, not that this snippet of their lives wasn't fun too. What they managed to fit in to half an hour was good and there was plenty to laugh with, if not so much to laugh at.

629.84/1000.

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.

"An Irish Goodbye" (23 min) has a slow paced start, but stay with it because it packs in as much storytelling and insight as many features. James Martin, an actor with Downs Syndrome, provides a star performance as a Downs Syndrome man, Lorcan, who reacts to the death of his mother with a creativity and emotional intelligence which surprises and surpasses those around him. The best part of this is that Downs Syndrome is not a big thing here. Rather the warm, funny and relatable Lorcan just happens to have Downs Syndrome as a part of his character.

"An Irish Goodbye" is a well deserved Oscar and Bafta winner of best short film.

An okay film, with an average script.

Unoriginal, and not overly well shot (dinner table scene did not flow).

Predictable story. We have seen many bucket list films before.

Dialogue was sketchy and weird timing... felt unintentionally awkward and it didn't flow.

The acting was fine, but certainly it did have a stand out performance by James Martin as brother Lorcan, who was very, very good.

We watched all the nominated shorts (short list), and couldn't work out why this was on the list, it felt the weakest by far. That's not to say it's a bad film. But there was nothing original about it, and it felt overly sentimental.

For this to rise to the top is a surprise, and for it to win an Oscar is bizarre. Guess it goes to show that anything is possible! So regardless of my thoughts, congratulation to the team.