When the desperately insecure and emotionally inarticulate John breaks up with Deirdre to ‘give her a little test’, his plan backfires leaving her broken-hearted and him alone and miserable. Through chance and coincidence, John and Deirdre’s break-up triggers a roller coaster ride of interweaving escapades in the lives of everyone around them. This intermission highlights just how lives can collide and shows the power we possess to affect the lives of those around us.Deidre takes up with an older married man, Sam, who leaves his wife of 14 years, Noeleen. John is furious that Deirdre can move on so quickly, while Oscar berates John for chucking her in the first place. “Could you not appreciate what you fuckin’ had…..?”
Oscar is sex-starved and masturbation giving him no relief. Lehiff, a morally void petty criminal is planning one last job before he settles down to his dream of domesticity. He starts watching Deirdre and Sam, a bank manager. War is waged between Lehiff and Jerry, a maverick detective with a personal crusade against crime who is being filmed by Ben, a TV producer frustrated by filming inane human interest stories for the local news.Into this mix comes Philip, a stone throwing thug in the making. One smashes the windshield of Lehiff’s getaway car opening the story, and another causes Mick to crash the bus he is driving from which Deirdre’s sister, Sally and mother, Maura, have just alighted. Sally, having been abused and dumped by an English boyfriend, is unable to face life, hiding behind a ‘ronnie’ on her upper lip, which she cannot acknowledge.
Noeleen, riding a tide of uncontrollable anger, is taken to a club
where she meets Oscar who has dragged John along with him. Oscar
and Noeleen start an affair while an even sadder and lonelier John goes
to the pub. There he meets Mick, fired by the bus company and worrying
how he will make payments on his wife’s new kitchen when Lehiff
draws them both into a bank heist plan. Ben’s
boss makes him set up an interview with Sally and Maura about the bus
crash infuriating Jerry who was expecting to become a media star.
All of these characters are blissfully unaware of the accidental nature
of life and the way in which their lives intersect, veering madly from
the ridiculously funny to the heart-breakingly sad.
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The hapless lover and his sex starved mate, the maverick detective and ruthless petty thief, the pretty girl on the rebound, the deserted wife on the verge of breakdown, the ambitious TV producer, the abandoned fiancée and a nine year old tearaway all find their lives interweaving in this hilarious story of modern romance with a twist.
Official Selection
Telluride Film Festival 2003
Official Selection
Toronto Film Festival 2003
Official Selection
San Sebastian Film Festival 2003
Official Selection
Dinard Film Festival 2003
Running time – 106 minutes
Starring
Colin Farrell
Kelly MacDonald
Shirley Henderson
Cillian Murphy
Colm Meaney
Written by Mark O’Rowe
Directed by John Crowley
Produced by Stephen Woolley,
Neil Jordan and Alan Moloney.
A Bord Scannan na hEirann, Irish Film Board, UK Film Council and IFC Films presentation of a Company of Wolves production in association with Parallel Film Productions and Portman Film