The tagline for this is “The antisocial son of an alcoholic father and a bipolar mother grows up in 1960s Ireland”, so forgive me if that and the colour grade on the promo photos meant I went in thinking this would be some overly earnest misery-porn. What we have here is some high-quality bait-and-switch weirdness that simply has to be explored. And, yes, a bit of 60s Ireland misery-porn.

“Needs more killer zombies!”

The film centres around the aforementioned Francie Brady who, thanks to the masterful performance of Eamon Owens, is best described as a horrible little shite of a boy. Whilst some of that is very clearly due to a combination of a troubled home and the whole region being a near Dickensian Hellhole, a lot of it appears to be down to him just being a jerk. He has a best friend called Joe (Alan Boyle) and they spend their time playing make-believe, bullying other kids, engaging with the birth of Pop culture, and living in the shadow of nuclear annihilation.

“That’s some amazing glue you have on your hands”

One of the targets of their tormenting is Mrs Nugent, a neighbour whose main credential for being picked on is not willing to put up with the pair’s (mostly Francie’s) bullshit. Through the rolling narration of elder Francie (provided by Stephen Rea, who also plays Francie’s Da… Freudian psychologists, please form an orderly queue…) and the general disposition of the direction, we’re supposed to view her as some kind of villainous hellion. But it’s 30-something Fiona Shaw, constantly wearing some kind of rubber trench coat, so mostly you’ll just agree with her that he’s awful and maybe need a cold shower.

Lord, have mercy

Eventually, his useful shenanigans result in sufficient Health And Safety violations that he gets crafted off to Borstal, and much akin to Blue Peter doing A Clockwork Orange, this is where the fun really starts! I won’t go into too many details, as it’ll ruin half the fun, but as reality gets more confusing and the narrator gets more unreliable things take a slow twist to the uncanny then run headfirst into crazy. In hindsight, everything makes sense, more so on a second viewing, but if you think you see it coming you are as full of shit as little Francie.

“Is that Superman?”

There is, to put it mildly, so much trauma in this film. Thankfully, it’s tempered with a growing and evolving sense of humour that will have you laugh out loud at the least appropriate of moments. It becomes of Mobius-strip of black comedy, but with a bon-vivant feel that many such things are missing. This includes the energetic directorial style and the little human touches and truths that build up the realism of it. All of this is helped by a soundtrack that slaps hard every moment it can and a genuinely positive story about the human spirit. Even if you don’t want it to be.

“I left the fecking gas on!”

So, yes; it’s a film starting kids. But you won’t want to slap any of the actors. And yes; it’s got a lot of opinions about how backwards Ireland was then. But it also makes a wider comment about the here and now. And, yes; Francie is just an utter dick. But the journey is so well handled that you’ll happily (if not always willingly) go along for the ride. It’s a Treasure of subtle strange cinema, avoiding genre restraints whilst unashamedly dealing with tropes and cliches. Find some time to watch it, and maybe get some unsuspecting friends to join in… The Raggedyman