INTERMISSION (2003) ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢
D: John Crowley
Shirley Henderson, Kelly Macdonald, Colm Meany,
Cillian Murphy, Colin Farrell, Brian F. O'Byrne
Ger Ryan, Barbara Bergin, Deirdre O'Kane
A good, street-level ensemble piece from Ireland, in which a couple dozen characters slip in and out of a dozen different stories, most of them trying in some way to get a grip on love. There's a small-time hood, two supermarket clerks, a tough-talking cop, a bus driver, a filmmaker, a bank manager and his wife and mistress, a young woman with facial-hair issues, a quadriplegic barfly and a kid on a bicycle with a rock. Some of them get what they're looking for, more or less, and many pints of Guinness are consumed. It's Colin Farrell, arguably the movie's biggest star, who gets the worst of it here. His wardrobe's ugly, his haircut's ugly, and his character's an abusive thug who only gets to be charming once, as a prelude to slugging a woman in the face. And if that's not enough, Colm Meany pisses on his shoes. Welcome back to Dublin, Colin.
