The Boys & Girl from County Clare (2005)

What makes it different from others?

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Every cliché about Ireland you could ever think of, plus some falling-in-the-water Ealing comedy stuff. They might have got away with it if it was MADE in the sixties. Though I doubt it.Hippies (in the early sixties??), bitter old maids, winsome lasses, young lads throwing up, sour old codgers with a heart of gold ... all we need is a couple of leprechauns.Andrea Corr is an amazing musician - she can play the fiddle without moving her fingers. (Why on earth didn't they ask Sharon?) And her acting is ... unbelievable. "How can you ever forgive me," she asks her mother at one point. "I've said such dreadful things." Never mind your mother, girl, it's the rest of us you have to worry about.

This is a very poorly paced, acted, and directed movie that, with a little imagination, could have delivered a decent story. The plot, such that it is, centres around two brothers from County Clare that parted in anger twenty years before the movie's setting at an Irish music festival. They meet as competitors, having engaged in some ham-fisted attempts to derail each other's arrival in time for registration, and quickly revisit the reasons for their acrimony. The plot develops so predictably from then on that the side stories are more interesting - but only marginally.The director curiously adheres to some stereotypes of Irish people and culture (and Liverpudlians' too), with plenty of drinking, cursing, vomiting, and general idiocy; however, he gets some very obvious cultural markers wrong - single women in pubs (the movie is set in the 1960s, when Ireland was far from its current liberal self), a man ordering wine in a pub (utterly unheard of back then!), and some non-Irish outsiders going totally unnoticed. Worse than this, however, is his unwillingness to go anywhere unconventional or unpredictable: characters are as flimsy as the script, the pace dull and boring, and even the music is mediocre at best. It tells a dull story competently; but nothing more. Colm Meaney meanders through the movie in third gear, while Andrea Corr makes a tolerable debut. Patrick Bergin and Frank Kelly have cameos that they won't add to their resumes. All in all, a poor movie that wastes what little it had going for it. Do yourself a favor and rent "The Field" instead.

Not much of a plot to this, most of my points are for the lovely Andrea Corr and the acting of the three brothers, Colm Meaney, Bernard Hill and Noel Bridgeman.All plot lines are totally predictable if not contrived. The abandoning father, the bitter mother, the angry daughter. However, it is saved, and this is refreshing, by there being no mawkishness or melodrama.Poor County Clare gets short shrift and never appears, Isle of Man and Northern Ireland stand in for it.I don't know what the reasons for not filming it in today were. There are frequent references to the Beatles to remind us it is taking place in the sixties. But I know for a fact that a Clare man married five times in England and returning to County Clare in the sixties would have been met by the priest and run out of town on a rail as giving bad example to the young ones.Also the single mother lying about her marital status (a widow), that was never clear, did she invent a man who died and a name for herself and her daughter? I don't like plot holes likes this. With such a simple storyline these should have been tightened up.The ceili band and actors were badly out of synch in some of the scenes, feet tapping hopelessly out of rhythm. But that said all in all it was a pleasant little froth of a thing with lovely music.7 out of 10.

If you like Irish music, that is, traditional Irish music, known to us who know, love and play, as sessions, then you'll love this little film. Colm Meaney, Jimmy, and Bernard Hill, Johnjoe are brothers in competition for winning a ceilidh band contest. Jimmy has immigrated and enjoys a modicum of success and Johnjoe has remained at home. The plot is thickened by the presence of Andrea Corr, Anne, who is Jimmy's daughter out of Charlotte Brtadley, Maisie, JohnJoe's piano player. The love interest is sparked by Jimmy's Liverpudlian flautist, Shaun Evans, Teddy, who falls heavily for Anne and were off the races. The dialogue is lively and the shenanigans are rampant. The payoff is fun and the music..., ah, the music. The music is aoibhinn ta gael. Under the wise baton of Fiachra Trench, the music is grand. Too, Andrea Corr of her own group, The Corrs, adds a bit of freshness to the pot with her perky Irish beauty. If you like sessions, you'll love this one. If you don't, well... listen anyway. The music is tops.