Running time: 85 minutes
Starring: Pat Shortt, Anne-Marie Duff, Conor Ryan
Rating 9 out of 10
While the rest of the world was celebrating the Irish film Once, the Irish themselves were throwing awards at Garage, a charming but bittersweet tale of one man's troubles in a rural community. It really is quite a special film, not least because of its sensational central performance, and one which merits multiple viewings. Lenny Abrahamson - whose 2005 debut Adam and Paul was warmly received - has made a small cracker of a film. It's Irish to its core, but the themes are universal. It's the tale of garage worker Josie, a simple-minded (possibly slightly mentally handicapped) fellow who diligently runs his boss's rundown petrol station with cheer and panache.
Beautifully shot by cinematographer Peter Robertson, the film follows the mundane day to day existence of Josie. He's the butt of the town's jokes, tries desperately to make friends with a group of teenagers some thirty years his junior, but leads a sad and somewhat pointless life.
This may sound like miserable fair but it is far from it. Indeed for much of the film's running time it's darkly amusing stuff thanks largely to a career-defining performance by Pat Shortt in the central role. An established comic actor in his native Ireland, and perhaps best known in the UK for his role as Tom in Father Ted (the one in the I Shot JR t-shirt), Shortt is so completely his character that it's almost hard to believe he is acting.
He is given able support by Anne-Marie Duff as a girl he has a crush on and Conor Ryan as the young teen who he is supposed to supervise in the garage, but it's really a one man show as he creates one of the most memorable film characters in some time. A little gem of a film which shows that the Irish film scene is going from strength to strength.
Paul Hurley
