Flipping channels the other night, I came upon the opening frames of AGNES BROWNE on the Sundance channel. It looked charming and I was intrigued by Angelica Houston playing against type as a working-class widow struggling to support her seven children in the hard-scrabble word of 1960's Ireland. Ultimately, however, the movie proved disappointing.
There were faint warning bells almost from the onset. As Agnes and her best fried Marion make their way through the halls of Irish bureaucracy just hours after the death of Agnes' husband, the dialogue is just a little too clever, the emotional tone just the slightest bit false. But these concerns are slight and we're willing to put them aside for the moment and see what's to come. A few scenes further on, when the mourners at Mr. Browne's funeral realize they're at the wrong grave site and make a crazy, rollicking dash through the cemetery to the correct one, we realize we're in serious trouble. There's a cartoonish broadness to AGNES BROWNE. Something about the film just seems a little off.
Angelica Houston, for all her appeal, is miscast as the lead. She simply doesn't do "earthy" convincingly. The emotional stakes throughout seem false. The crisises, such as Marion's collapse from cancer, seem forced. The script's machinations are ham-fisted and obvious. But most disturbingly, the depictions of the Irish and of Irish life are chock-full of cliché and stereotype. Here are the Irish having a rollicking good time at the pub. Here are the Irish banning together to help one of their own. Here are the Irish being moved and touched. Here are the Irish dancing a jig. Here are the Irish bouncing back with wit and tough humor. And at all times, they are very, very IRISH! The film comes off more as someone's fantasy of what Irish people are like more than anything real.
One of Agnes Browne's dreams is to attend a Tom Jones concert.Two-thirds of the way through, I was simply persevering to get a look at Mr. Jones He does show up eventually, but even that seems a little odd (that's not a spoiler, he's in the credits, you know he's coming one way or another). He remains a phenomenal performer but, after the film's haphazard attempts at a gritty realism, watching the 60-ish Jones portray his 20-something self is just bizarre.
Thankfully the children make AGNES BROWNE bearable. Each a quirky individual in his or her own right, they provide the film with some of its truest moments and best performances. AGNES BROWNE is not without its charms, but in other hands - and most importantly, with better writing - it could have been a much better movie.
There were faint warning bells almost from the onset. As Agnes and her best fried Marion make their way through the halls of Irish bureaucracy just hours after the death of Agnes' husband, the dialogue is just a little too clever, the emotional tone just the slightest bit false. But these concerns are slight and we're willing to put them aside for the moment and see what's to come. A few scenes further on, when the mourners at Mr. Browne's funeral realize they're at the wrong grave site and make a crazy, rollicking dash through the cemetery to the correct one, we realize we're in serious trouble. There's a cartoonish broadness to AGNES BROWNE. Something about the film just seems a little off.
Angelica Houston, for all her appeal, is miscast as the lead. She simply doesn't do "earthy" convincingly. The emotional stakes throughout seem false. The crisises, such as Marion's collapse from cancer, seem forced. The script's machinations are ham-fisted and obvious. But most disturbingly, the depictions of the Irish and of Irish life are chock-full of cliché and stereotype. Here are the Irish having a rollicking good time at the pub. Here are the Irish banning together to help one of their own. Here are the Irish being moved and touched. Here are the Irish dancing a jig. Here are the Irish bouncing back with wit and tough humor. And at all times, they are very, very IRISH! The film comes off more as someone's fantasy of what Irish people are like more than anything real.
One of Agnes Browne's dreams is to attend a Tom Jones concert.Two-thirds of the way through, I was simply persevering to get a look at Mr. Jones He does show up eventually, but even that seems a little odd (that's not a spoiler, he's in the credits, you know he's coming one way or another). He remains a phenomenal performer but, after the film's haphazard attempts at a gritty realism, watching the 60-ish Jones portray his 20-something self is just bizarre.
Thankfully the children make AGNES BROWNE bearable. Each a quirky individual in his or her own right, they provide the film with some of its truest moments and best performances. AGNES BROWNE is not without its charms, but in other hands - and most importantly, with better writing - it could have been a much better movie.