peevish mama

Paint me impressed. Our friend Pat Coyle (Irish Laddie for purposes of this blog) wrote and directed (and acted in – that’s him above) a beautiful film called Into Temptation whose run at the Lagoon has gotten extended for a week, which makes this post of imminent import. I would like you to go. Go to support a local film maker, who had to move mountains to get this baby, his baby, made and seen. Go to see a movie that will remind you how much you used to love movies before life got so busy, when you had the time to go to every indie and foreign film playing at the corner movie house, when every once in a great while you were left stunned, unable to get out of your seat until the last credit rolled off the screen into crackling silence. Go to see our fair city preen and strut her stuff up on the big screen, as plain by day and gaudy by night as the hookers in the movie. Go to see a movie that sounds pitch perfect. Not one false note. Just go. You’ve got one week. Show times here.

I’ll leave the synopsis to the professionals here and here, but I just want to say that this movie is a really good reminder that film, despite being such a grand, sweeping, larger than life medium, can also be heartbreakingly perfect for presenting a very simple and soulful story like this one. In this age of Hollywood blockbusters, Megaplexes and supersized Cokes, you forget that sometimes, sitting in a lumpy theater seat in the dark and letting your pulse slow down for a couple hours, can be one of the most transformative and lovely experiences around. This movie, Pat’s movie, forces you to pay attention with all your senses, because there is nothing too obvious, too loud, too Hollywoodish about it. You listen and watch the way you’d listen and watch in a dark wood – for the tiny, the telling, the salient and true.

I think it takes a really deft hand to control a movie, to allow the truth of the relationships to emerge through restrained dialogue, almost imperceptible glances, the slant in a person’s shoulders. The acting is outstanding, the music perfection, and the story, well, the story is as deeply affecting as they come. The movie manages to be funny, smart, thrilling and crushingly sad. It reveals itself in small moments of tension, quirkiness, humanity, doubt and despair while the macro questions about God, loneliness, and existential angst loom like a shadowy figure just around the corner. It is a treat and a treasure. It is a challenge. It is art.

Hat’s off, Irish Laddie.