The film gets quickly underway as Syracuse (Farrell; nicknamed Circus for his drunken bad boy past, and a play on his name) in his fishing trawler hauls up a beautiful young woman in his net. Bewildered, he is unable to turn her over to the hospital when she pleads for anonymity and help. He puts her up in an isolated island cottage that belonged to his dead mother.
Syracuse is divorced with a young daughter Annie who needs a kidney transplant. His ex is irresponsible and a sometimes-lush herself, and shacked up with a Scotsman. Syracuse, to pass the uncomfortable time during his daughter's dialysis treatment, tells Annie a fairy story of a fisherman netting a beautiful woman, and Annie spins it into a story about a selkie maiden, giving her dad all the details of the legend; if the selkie's seal pelt is buried on land, she will have no choice but to stay for seven years.
The "selkie" calls herself Ondine (Alicja Bachleda) and bit by bit she and Syracuse open up emotionally to each other. She is ambiguous about whether she is really a selkie, but everything seems to fit. She does have a mysterious but dangerous past, which catches up with her.
Co-stars include Stephen Rea as the local preacher and Dervla Kirwen as the ex.
Farrell at first glance would not seem the ideal person to cast as the romantic lead in a present day fairy tale, but he was pretty good in the role. Overall the characters were well-developed. The ex was a little too much in the ex vein, a little too bitter and drunken, and the daughter was a little too precocious and mature for her age, but both served their purpose for the plot without being too obvious.
Bachleda was just exotic/non-Irish enough to be believable as a selkie as well as a fairy tale damsel in distress, and the two leads had good chemistry. Filmed on location but not flashy, and a good retelling of the selkie legend with a modern twist.
No comments:
Post a Comment