Dark Lies The Island

Remember when you were growing up and you thought your home town was the most boring place on earth. Nothing ever seemed to happen there. Everyone looked happy and wholesome and full of the joys of spring. Then as you got older the cracks appeared. You started hearing whispers and understanding just what exactly people were getting at. You realised beneath the surface was black.

Dromord. A palindrome. A beautiful lakeside village with a heart as dark as the water lapping against it's shore. The Mannions. A family who once commanded respect and who've now crumbled. Daddy Mannion (Pat Shortt), a monster with a finger in a number of pies around town. Martin Mannion (Moe Dunford), his son, beat down and belittled by his father. Dog Mannion (Peter Coonan), his eldest son, forced into the wilderness by familial betrayal. Sarah (Charlie Murphy), wife to Daddy but connected to all three men. Then Richie (Tommy Tiernan) appears on the scene, new in town, chips on his mind, on the run from his past. One fateful night all five collide.

Dark Lies The Island is a fine new Irish film about the sedentary, slithery blackness that lies beneath the surface of seemingly benign small villages. Places where everyone knows your business. Places where differences are noticed. Places where you cannot put a foot wrong. It paints a perfect picture of banal evil and populates it with well drawn, just quirky enough, characters but then annoyingly favours one storyline far more than the other meaning the climax, when it arrives, doesn't feel as earned or as satisfying as it should. But just because the destination isn't all that was promised, that doesn't mean the journey isn't enjoyable.

There's a small moment early in the film where Richie arrives in Dromord and stands in the street looking nonplussed at his new surroundings. It gave me a huge giggle. Simply because it was Tommy Tiernan looking confused. Dark Lies The Island isn't anything near a comedy but it's still spotted with enough little moments like that to ensure you have a good time despite the grim storyline playing out in front of you. A dash of hair dye here, a compliment for the dead there, a weeping patron and a callous barman, septic karaoke, idiot brothers confused by trapeze artists, the green bloat, a combination of dress size and smelly men. Black comedy to compliment it's surroundings. That wonderfully Irish combination of humour and pathos.

Pat Shortt as Daddy is fantastic. A vile creation. Bitterness personified and content to spread it around. I've never seen him like this before and i liked it. Moe Dunford & Peter Coonan as his sons are as good as ever, Coonan especially, radiates danger while Dunford reeks of sadness. Charlie Murphy as Sarah does fine work too. Struggling to hold herself together, revolted by and tied to a family she'd give anything to get away from. Tommy Tiernan puts in a mighty shift as well. His Richie is as beat down by life as any man and Tiernan plays him so straight that comedy is forced from the situations he finds himself in. But as good as he is, it's his plot line that puts the film lobsided. Had we gotten more time with him, more information about him, just a bit even, it would have turned his character into more than a plot device. I haven't read the book written by Kevin Barry that this was based upon so can't say if the problem is with the adaption or the source material. It's a pity though. So close.

Dark Lies The Island is well worth seeing despite an iffy ending. Dark, oppressive and strangely entertaining. Out in cinemas now.