Dir.
Maeve Murphy, UK, 2009, 77 mins
Cast:
Scot Williams, Cara Seymour, Alison Cain
Review by Richard Mellor
Scene 1 of “Beyond The Fire” and immediately I'm fretting. For, crossing the Irish Sea via chugging ferry, 30-something Sheamy (Scot Williams) is already gazing wistfully into the great beyond, his placid features stoically disguising the bubbling pit of self-loathing, loneliness, pain and tragedy he's suffering within. That's what I'm going with anyway; could be he's just admiring the Isle of Man or planning lunch.
The point is we've arrived in cliché land so quickly I've scarcely finished writing down the Executive Producer's name. Director Maeve Murphy – unpromisingly, the veteran of only one previous feature film, an unheralded 2001 flick about Irish IRA prisoners – isn't finished yet, either. A firm believer in closets and skeletons, she has the bright idea of uniting Sheamy, who it turns out has just served jail-time after his own IRA stint, with his London-based pal's flatmate, Katie (Cara Seymour), a rape victim some months ago, and understandably single and scared ever since.
Not exactly a dream match, I think you'll agree, but whoa cowboy – there's much worse to come. Just when you think it'll be Katie dreading the big S-E-X, it turns out her new beau's still a virgin. See, before his Irish Republican Army stint, Sheamy (could it get more Oirish?) was, believe it or not, a priest. Only now he's not sure whether he's in touch in God, so he's not a priest, so he can have sex. Except he can't in fact, due to a cloying disgust at Katie's tainted sexual history. This truly will have to be an Incredible Relationship Against All The Odds (IRAATO) I think to myself, without optimism.
Sheamy certainly does his bit to make things difficult, his emotional scars almost visible. When not hurriedly doing up his belt in a moment of anguish, he's taking Katie to church ceremonies on dates and chanting along to songs about the Virgin Mary. Throw in his no-fixed-abode address, an ever-present leather jacket that positively screams Primarni and high-pitched theological rows with a fat Father and there's a sneaking suspicion that old Sheamy's maybe a bit nuts. And that's before he spills the beans on his IRA experiences.
Charged with such a tortured soul, Williams does well, hinting at something dark and destructive behind the shy, Colin-Farrell-in-“Ballykissangel” charm. But Seymour's the true star here, blessed as she is with the better-written character. On a purely physical level, it's refreshing to have a female love interest, who's pretty rather than beautiful, who's a size 10 rather than size 6 and who roars with gummy laughter rather than simply flashing vapid smiles and perfect teeth. Acting-wise, her sassiness is brilliantly transparent, anger and distrust so very obvious below.
Time for me to be just as straightforward, and make the following clear: little happens in “Beyond The Fire”. Sheamy and Katie slowly shed their respective masks and wonder if they can tolerate one another and that's about the size of it. Shot in murky hues around less than glorious North London corners, Murphy's film is much more a fraught pot boiler than giddy drama. For this is independent cinema, see, with the emphasis being on dense characters rather than cardboard cut-outs and on gradual rehabilitation rather than sudden, cathartic outpouring. No room for the impatient here: move along please!
A particular rule of gritty, low-budget indie realism romances – as opposed to Meg Ryan-style fluffiness – is that there's wickedly little guarantee of a happy ending. Sheamy and Katie's IRAATO wobbles from row to recrimination to reconciliation with all the assurance of a Gordon Brown cabinet. Both participants are desperate for a mystical Relationship, but this biggest R of all seems as elusive as a certain Portuguese winger (whose name, happily, also begins with R). Her film gloomy, moving and packed with pain, Murphy never seems likely to let this couple waltz off into the sunset.
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