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| Ondine (12A)
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Dir. Neil Jordan, Ireland/US, 2009, 104 mins
Cast: Colin Farrell, Alicja Bachleda
Review by Carol Allen
In this cinematic fable writer/director Jordan attempts to combine Celtic myth with contemporary reality.
Farrell plays Syracuse, a reformed alcoholic, who is struggling to make a living as a fisherman from the waters off the west coast of Ireland. One day he catches a woman in his net. Ondine (Bachleda) appears to be dead, but Syracuse manages to revive her, takes her into his home, falls in love with her and under the influence of his daughter Annie (Barry) begins to believe that maybe she is a Selkie, a mermaid type creature of Celtic myth, who assumes human form by shedding her seal skin. Until that is the brutal reality of Ondine's true origins rudely breaks through.
The performances are good, particularly Farrell, demonstrating here that he can play good boys as well as bad in the role of the simple, good hearted and well meaning Syracuse and Bachleda has an intriguing, other worldly air about her, helped by the fact that she is an new face to audiences. Ten year old Barry in her first acting role is engaging as Annie, an imaginative and confident child, despite the fact that she suffers from kidney disease and is sometimes confined to a wheelchair. There are also good supporting performances from Stephen Rea as the dry as sherry local priest and Dervla Kirwan, almost unrecognisable as Syracuse's drunken ex wife.
There's also a strong sense of the texture of fishing village coastal life and the contrast between the grim working conditions of the fishermen and the beautiful countryside around.
The idea of an apparent myth coming to life in the "real world" is an interesting one but it doesn't quite convince here. Neil Jordan is a good, eclectic and sometimes erratic film maker with a particular interest in disparate characters with a difficult past coming together, as in his early film The Crying Game . The romance of that, startlingly unusual though it was, was however rather more successful. This one may prove a bit too heavy on Irish whimsicality and fey melancholy for some tastes and the switch to a harsher reality towards the end doesn't really work. The simplicity of the story and its treatment is though refreshing and It is worth seeing for the quality of the performances and the scenery.
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