And now for something completely different.
Irish films are not exactly en vogue, but the Williams Lake Film Club has found an Irish film which has proven to be a surprise hit — even to the Irish.
On Tuesday, March 6, we will be screening the off-beat film The Guard, starting at 7 p.m. at the Gibraltar Room at the Cariboo Memorial Complex with back doors opening at 6:30 p.m.
If you like black comedy, jet black comedy, this one is for you.
Set in Galway on Ireland’s west coast, The Guard was very well received at the Sundance and Tribeca Film Festivals in the U.S. before opening the Edinburgh Film Festival, where it went absolutely huge. And now the debut film that became the most successful independently funded Irish movie ever has won The Guardian First Film Award.
What is this film all about?
To put it in a nutshell, Sergeant Gerry Boyle, played unforgettably well by Brendan Gleeson, is a small-town Irish cop with a confrontational personality, a subversive sense of humor, a dying mother, a fondness for prostitutes (especially if they dress up in police uniform), and absolutely no interest whatsoever in the international cocaine smuggling ring that has brought straight laced FBI agent Wendell Everett to his door (Don Cheadle, ever so prim and proper).
As The Guardian film critic and one of the judges, Peter Bradshaw said, it is a work of “originality and wit … horribly funny, deliciously incorrect, with an unexpectedly stirring, old-fashioned friendship between two lawmen.”
But then again, nothing is what it seems to be in this film, or should it be the other way around?
The lines keep on coming, the action takes any twist and turn possible, but all in a quiet deliberate manner.
And the language is peppery, as Tihol, my husband, likes to say.
The F-word is used frequently and completely casually and when Gleeson says something like: “I’m Irish. Racism is part of my culture,” you barely dare to blink because you don’t want to miss the next line.
If you think now that this is just a comedy, another good-cop, bad-cop film, you are wrong again. This is not your everyday buddy movie. This film has a lot to say about life, just in a different way.
There will be refreshments served after the screening and I hope I will finally get to bake the sesame cookies I have been planning for a while. They sure sound good. Everyone is welcome to our films. Although they are presented by the Williams Lake Film Club, admission is open to everyone.
The proceeds go to the LDA, the Williams Lake Chapter of the Association for Students with Learning Disabilities.
By the way, we are off to the Lower Mainland. One of the things we are planning to do is meet with Paul St. Pierre to get some more parts of the series “Cariboo Country.” Excited? Am I ever.
Film club admission is $9 regular, $8 for members, and $6 for seniors (65-plus) and students, high-school and TRU.
See you Tuesday.