Song For a Raggy Boy film review

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SONG FOR A RAGGY BOY

Being a recalcitrant youngster in Ireland up until the 1980s can't have been much fun. As Peter Mullan's powerful Magdalene Sisters showed us, girls who merely looked at boys were often sent to cruelly institutionalised establishments, and Aisling Walsh's new film acts as a kind of male counterpart. Walsh herself made the Irish telefilm Sinners about the Magdalene laundries, and now turns her attention to the treatment boys received at the hands of vindictive and abusive priests. While it lacks the overall force of Mullan's film, it's still a powerful indictment against a regime purporting to base itself on God's teachings.

Based on Patrick Galvin's account of the time he spent in a boys' reform school, the film sees William Franklin (Aidan Quinn), a teacher, arrive at the staunchly Catholic St. Jude's school in 1939. Just back from the Spanish Civil War, Franklin is an idealist but is also scarred from what he has seen in Spain as well as the loss of his Spanish sweetheart. As the first lay teacher in the school, he has to deal with pupils who can barely read, and priests who do little to give him a warm welcome, particularly the sadistic Brother John (Ian Glen), and the perverted Brother Mac (Marc Warren), who respectively take great pleasure in beating the boys to a pulp or raping them. We therefore have a somewhat predictable, if occasionally moving, battle between good and evil, even if the evil is purported to be in the name of God. Franklin makes headway with the boys, who learn to read and write, and lo and behold by the end of the film are able to quote Wordsworth and Shelley to him. Meanwhile the brutal regime continues with the boys facing increasingly severe reprimands for the littlest offence. Walsh leaves little to the imagination as far as these beatings are concerned, and they provide the most powerful moments of the film.

The performances are strong throughout with Quinn displaying a believable sense of charm and righteousness. It's easy to understand how he could have had such a powerful influence on the boys. Ian Glen is suitably demonic as the violent Head Brother, while Marc Warren plays against his usual wideboy type and is impressive as the remorse-filled sexual predator. The boys, most of whom are non-professional actors, complement their adult counterparts well.