Reviews2.Main Content
Intermission
Intermission, written by Mark O'Rowe
Sun, 18 Feb 2007
Trevor Johnston finds much to admire in Irish playwright Mark O’Rowe’s darkly funny screenplay for Intermission.
When you reduce it to basics, Dublin playwright Mark O’Rowe’s début screenplay hardly sounds like much. A bittersweet comedy-drama of intersecting urban lives? Been there before, that’s for sure. Then again Short Cuts, Magnolia, Love Actually and sundry others could probably be reduced to the same essential outline. There are a million ways of slicing the stories in these naked cities, and authorial attitude plays a major part in the outcome.
‘Attitude’ is certainly a word which comes to mind as Intermission bustles its way on-screen with a (quite literally) gobsmacking opening scene. Tattooed bruiser Lehiff (Colin Farrell) is giving a bit of the old chat to a café till-girl: he could be ‘the one’, after all, and they might fall in love, or, on the other hand, he might be a dirty thief – you just never know, but this unfortunate lass is about to find out. Critics reviewing the film were requested not to reveal the ‘punchline’, suffice to say that the set-piece ends with a broken nose, an empty cash-register and a police chase. The image eventually freezes on Farrell’s defiant features in a manner which (deliberately?) brings to mind Ewan McGregor’s look to camera at the start of Trainspotting. So far, so striking.
This initial announcement of edgy intent makes all the difference as O’Rowe starts to lay out his cards. It’s working-class Dublin, there are a few dodgy characters about, so the audience had better be on their toes. In the shuffle of scenes which follow we learn that supermarket shelf-stacker John (Cillian Murphy) is miserable because he suggested a trial separation to test the feelings of girlfriend Deirdre (Kelly MacDonald), and she took him at his word. We discover she’s now taken up with balding bank manager Sam (Michael McElhatton), whose rejected spouse Noeleen (Deirdre O’Kane) in turn seeks solace in John’s geeky, desperate-for-a-shag best-mate Oscar (David Wilmot). Paths converge when bad-boy Lehiff plots to kidnap Deirdre and thus force Sam to empty the coffers of his own bank, with embittered John among the trio of masked marauders, notepad at the ready so his voice doesn’t give the game away. Trailing the lot of them is rogue cop Jerry (Colm Meaney), whose macho posturing, the subject of a TV documentary, contrasts with his self-professed love of ‘Celtic mysticism’ in the music of Clannad and Enya. He says it’s his sole redeeming feature. The audience is not so sure.
The devil’s definitely in the details here, since it’s not just O’Rowe’s confidence in joining the dots between plot which keeps us engaged, but his considerable comic invention conjuring up a disarmingly oddball individuals and behaviour. There’s John’s inexplicable penchant for brown sauce in his tea, for instance, a paraplegic pub-bore sucking Guinness from a straw while horizontal on the floor, Deirdre’s depressed sister Sally (Shirley Henderson) in denial over her moustache (or ‘Ronnie’ as enigmatic local parlance has it), plus tattooed geezer Lehiff’s deepening interest in kitchen utensils and cooking oils as he ponders feathering a nest with his ill-gotten gains. The fun really, is that you just don’t know what’s coming next, but the strangeness never seems there for effect, always remaining within the bounds of a story or a someone you might just encounter in any watering hole on a Dublin estate.
Memorable bits of business then, and a youthful anti-establishment attitude (cheers when John brains his pompous supermarket boss with a well-aimed tin of peas) prove key to the raucous entertainment-value which makes the film so readily appealing. But there has to be more to it than that, and there is. The notion of ‘intermission’, of people being at a transitional stage in their lives, offers a sound organising conceit, as John and Deirdre, for instance, react in very different ways to their separation, while the unfortunate Oscar’s break from involuntary celibacy isn’t quite the cause for celebration he’d initially anticipated. His pathetic confession to John about his masculinity-wilting loss of the very will to masturbate uncovers O’Rowe’s underlying theme about individuals attempting to live up to a self-image they’ve set for themselves. With Sam, Noeleen and Oscar, it’s a question of confusing self-worth with sex as they find themselves floundering in unworkable relationships; for Jerry the strong-arm cop, being followed by a video camera is a much-needed validation for his sense of himself as a sort of Dublin ‘Dirty Harry’, while the TV director’s contribution eventually betrays his suppressed desire to be in on the action for himself; supermarket manager Mr Henderson meanwhile, (a splendidly oily Owen Roe) peppers his pronouncements with American buzzwords as if they somehow increase his sense of authority. By a similar token, it’s only by seeing herself interviewed on television that unkempt Sally (she of the facial hair issues) is shocked into realising just how much bitterness at past romantic misfortunes has left her in denial of her deteriorating personal appearance.
There are certainly insights enough here to prompt frissons of recognition, but with so many characters and plot-strands to keep juggling, there’s a limit how far each of them can be developed. It’s only really in the overly neat resolutions dotting the final reel that the strain begins to tell, but by then the film’s worked up such goodwill we’re inclined to be indulgent towards it, allowing O’Rowe to get away with a last gasp of sincerity in John and Deirdre’s big reunion. Thus is revealed the soft heart beating behind O’Rowe’s blacker-than-porter wit, though we’ve suspected as much all along.
In truth, the sentiment and cynicism aren’t exactly a seamless blend, but since Intermission presents itself as nothing more than a wicked-tongued romp with a bit of added value, it seems churlish to carp. While his stage work (Howie The Rookie, Crestfall) has continued to prowl Dublin’s murkier corners, it’ll be interesting to see how and when future screenplays will develop. Certainly, you can imagine O’Rowe pushing the urban grotesquerie even further, but there’s a glimmering of social conscience here too – witness the terrifying you scamp winging bricks at bus drivers – and you could see him bringing the sort of streetwise engagement to his work that Paul Laverty has been able to supply for Ken Loach. Following in the footsteps of Roddy Doyle and Conor McPherson, O’Rowe’s gift for priceless dialogue seems almost a given, and hopefully he’ll retain his blissful grasp of comic incongruity: together they made Colin Farrell’s flawlessly delivered ‘Is that a wok I see….?’ the heartiest laugh to be had in cinemas last year.
This Review is by Script Factory Reader Trevor Johnston
Do check out other reviews on this site as well as articles of interest to screenwriters and other people who work with stories.
If you are interested in reviewing from a screenwriter's perspective - be it anything from films and TV dramas to books and events - please do contact us.