A Touch of the Blarney

In the spirit of the day, I attempted for about two minutes and twelve seconds to write this post in a beautifully thick Irish brogue dialect. This proved an ill-fated idea. Alas, to misquote an old Gaelic proverb, it is better to write in clever English than in broken Irish. Never the less, I will approach tonight’s post with every intention of maintaining just a touch of the Blarney.

When you think of Ireland and the movies, if you think about them at all, your thoughts most likely jump immediately to one of two kinds of movies. Either you picture terrorist thrillers with the IRA standing in for the brood of bad guys; something in the flavor of Harrison Ford’s Patriot Games. Or you picture comic scenes set among quaint little villages, with quirky squinty-eyed and ruddy-cheeked characters clinging thoroughly to their God-fearing traditions; perhaps Disney’s Darby O’Gill and the Little People or John Wayne’s The Quiet Man. However, there is a different brand of Irish cinema out there, adding a richer and more meaningful depth to the stories of the strong and determined people who hail from the Emerald Isle. The film I want to talk about tonight was directed by two-time Academy Award nominated and Dublin born Jim Sheridan.

A couple of years ago, I happened upon a little movie not at all by accident. Rather, I came to know the film thanks to the marvelous recommendation of my sister’s mother-in-law and treasured friend of the family, Barri Jones. The movie was made in 2002 but did not premier in the States until 2003, and then only within the film festival circuit. Needless-to-say, the movie got lost in the shuffle and remained completely unnoticed by me until Barri made the splendid introduction. At the time, I already knew Jim Sheridan, in fact very well, as the director of the brilliant and powerful In the Name of the Father starring the peerless Daniel Day-Lewis. That film, along with Day-Lewis’ Academy Award winning performance in Sheridan’s My Left Foot, etched out a high-ranking position for the director among Irish cinema’s foremost significant elite.

In America is the wonderful story of an Irish family that illegally immigrates to the United States, with hope that the father can break into the New York theater scene. This is not your standard immigration story of huddled masses arriving in New York Harbor aboard an overcrowded steamer. In this story, in fact, the family crosses the Canadian border in a station wagon. There is no one in this story yearning to be free. The plight of this family is merely an attempt at a fresh start in a country famous for them. And yet the efforts made by these parents to create a home for their spirited young daughters among the slums of Hell’s Kitchen are truly heroic to behold. Nowhere will you find a better example of the modern day immigrant experience than within this amazing little movie. A scene at a fair with the dad, a game of double or nothing, and the family’s entire life savings proves to be one of the most gut-wrenching scenes I have ever watched. But this is no story of being down and out and full of disappointment and collapse. Rather with each falter this family manages to keep pushing with effort back in the direction of hope. It is inspiring.

The acting is vibrant and genuine across the board. Paddy Considine as the father is wonderful as a man who can stomach the ridicule that accompanies his outsider status, but can’t fathom the possibility of his own failure. The girls are played by real-life sisters, Sarah and Emma Bolger, in two magnificent presentations of youthful strength of mind, both completely devoid of any hint of the pretension or overacting that often supplements child performances. Holding the whole family together with heart-breaking strength and valiant determination is the mother, played with unnerving realism in an Academy Award nominated performance by Samantha Morton. If you did not know any better, you might be persuaded to believe that Sheridan found a real family to portray his onscreen creation, they are that believable.

So tonight on this celebration of St. Patrick’s Day, should you find yourself in need of something to go along with your coddle and stout, heed this recommendation from Barri and me. See In America.

And now, along with a raised glass of Guinness, here is my hope that we all find our Shangri-La. Slán go fóill.