Main Cast: Bill Paterson, Eleanor David, Clare Grogan, Alex Norton, Patrick Malahide
Release Year: 1984
Country: UK
Run Time: 93 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG
Plot
Writer/director Bill Forsyth's follow-up to his best film, Local Hero, is another comic exploration of a man undergoing a personal crisis. In Local Hero, the American played by Peter Riegert finds himself enchanted by the people and ambience of a Scottish village he has been dispatched to purchase for an oil company. In Comfort and Joy, Alan (Bill Paterson) is a Glasgow radio disc jockey whose air name is the chirpy Dickey Bird. After Maddy, his girlfriend (Eleanor David), walks out on him at Christmas, he's spurred to re-evaluate his life. Looking for more meaningful work than spinning pop tunes and offering inane chatter to his geriatric listeners, Alan decides to make a radio documentary. He chances upon a local rivalry between two ice cream companies, who are sabotaging each other's trucks in an effort to monopolize the market. Attracted to Charlotte (C.P. Grogan), the daughter of one of the company owners, Alan finds himself playing peacemaker rather than documentarian. That this cold war takes place in the dead of a bitter Scottish winter is only one of Forsyth's many sly touches. ~ Tom Wiener, All Movie Guide
Review
Even if it's not up to the sublime heights of Local Hero, Comfort and Joy is still a strong entry in writer/director Bill Forsyth's modest filmography. Character actor Bill Paterson is perfect as the likable but ineffectual Alan; you can see why a woman like his girlfriend (Eleanor David), who is first seen shoplifting her way through a department store at Christmas, would grow tired of his plodding ways. Nonetheless, when Alan begins casting about for work that will bring more meaning to his life, you find yourself pulling for him. Forsyth then begins introducing a gallery of off-center characters, most of them connected to the ice cream war Alan stumbles into, and Alan is forced to see beyond his own petty problems to take into account a seemingly petty but truly serious business rivalry. The film never overplays its hand at presenting, as in Local Hero, an insular community of lovably preoccupied folks. Few directors -- Jonathan Demme in Citizens Band and Melvin and Howard and Jean-Pierre Jeunet in Amelie -- can match Forsyth with that kind of achievement. ~ Tom Wiener, All Movie Guide
Rikki Fulton - Hilary; Roberto Bernardi - Mr. McCool; Peter Rossi - Paulo; Katy Black - Sarah; Robin Black - Lily; Robert Buchanan - Trevor's Workman; Gilly Gilchrist - Rufus; Caroline Guthrie - Gloria; Johnny Irving - Bob Hope Look-Alike; Ona McCracken - Nancy; Billy McElhaney - Renato; David Patrick O'Hara - Engineer; George Rossi - Bruno; Douglas Sannachan - Trevor's Workman; Elizabeth Sinclair - Fiona; Alan Stuart - Fight Arranger; Teri Lally - Shop Assistant; Arnold Brown - Psychiatrist; Alistair Campbell - Keith; Ron Donachie - George; Ray Jeffries - Removal Man; Iain McColl - Archie; Alan Tall - Trevor's Workman; Billy Greenlees - Trevor's Workman; Charles Kearney - All-Night Deejay
Credit
Andy Harris - Art Director, Paddy Higson - Associate Producer, Susie Figgis - Casting, Lindy Hemming - Costume Designer, Mary-Jane Reyner - Costume Designer, Ian Madden - First Assistant Director, Bill Forsyth - Director, Michael Ellis - Editor, Mark Knopfler - Composer (Music Score), Yvonne Coppard - Makeup, Adrienne Atkinson - Production Designer, Andy Harris - Production Designer, Chris Menges - Cinematographer, Davina Belling - Producer, Clive Parsons - Producer, Louis Kramer - Sound/Sound Designer, Roy Alon - Stunts, Bill Forsyth - Screenwriter
Comfort and Joy is a 1984 film directed by Bill Forsyth. It stars Bill Paterson as a Glasgow radio DJ whose life undergoes a bizarre upheaval when his girlfriend leaves him.
In Glasgow, just before Christmas, newly-single radio disc jockey Allan "Dicky" Bird follows an attractive girl riding in an ice cream van and witnesses a sudden turf war between rival Italian ice cream vendors. Misadventure ensues, including an ambush on the van (whose occupants retaliate with squirts of raspberry sauce), and later the 'bombing' of his red BMW 323i Baur convertible with ice cream cones.
Bird becomes obsessed with the turf war. In trying to normalize relations between the "Mr. Bunny" and "Mr. McCool" gangs, he broadcasts coded messages on his radio show. His boss, played by comic actor Rikki Fulton, becomes suspicious of Bird's sanity and orders him to see a psychiatrist.
In the end, Bird negotiates a truce between the rival entrepreneurs, who turn out to be uncle and nephew, by inventing a new treat that both can sell profitably. He alone retains the secret ingredient of the ancient Chinese recipe.
Bird's troubles start when he follows a "Mr. Bunny" ice cream van under a tunnel-like railway bridge. As in Alice in Wonderland, the protagonist has followed the rabbit into a hole, with sometimes bizarre consequences.
