Themes: Class Differences, Down on Their Luck, Police Corruption
Main Cast: Colin Farrell, Shirley Henderson, Kelly MacDonald, Colm Meaney, Cillian Murphy
Release Year: 2003
Country: IE
Run Time: 102 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
In the suburbs of Dublin, more than a dozen strangers find their paths colliding in sometimes violent, sometimes absurd ways in Intermission, the first feature from director John Crowley. Setting the chain of events in motion is Lehiff (Colin Farrell), a small-time crook whose most recent petty theft has him on the run from Jerry (Colm Meaney), a self-aggrandizing police detective who's even more full of himself now that he's being constantly trailed by a TV news documentary crew. Meanwhile, Lehiff's friend John (Cillian Murphy) is going though a trial breakup -- or "intermission," as he calls it -- with his girlfriend, Deirdre (Kelly Macdonald), who has promptly taken up with the older, more conventionally responsible bank manager Sam (Michael McElhatton). When Lehiff suggests that the answer to all of his and John's troubles is to set up Sam and rob his vaults, John's too eager to comply -- and their plan spells dire consequences for everyone in their immediate circle of relations. Also starring David Wilmot, Brian F. O'Byrne, and Shirley Henderson, Intermission had its premiere at the Galway Film Festival, where it won the Audience Award, and secured berths at the Edinburgh, Telluride, and Toronto festivals. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide
Review
Arriving a good five to ten years past the zeitgeist, John Crowley's grungy debut feature manages to offer a smattering of choice performances from some of Ireland's most talented young actors, even if it fails to add anything to the post-Pulp Fiction, post-Trainspotting indie landscape. Treading the middle ground between the sickly sweet ensemble romance Playing by Heart and the heist-for-heist's-sake films of Guy Ritchie, Intermission is shot and edited with such economy, it might give viewers the false impression that it's actually about something. Despite a vague plea for the redemptive power of love over the pitfalls of avarice, it isn't. Instead, Crowley's film offers a handful of usually underappreciated actors the chance to try out quirky personas the way one might sort through thrift-store overcoats: There's the innately sweet Cillian Murphy's befuddled-romantic John; the reliably brilliant Shirley Henderson, almost managing to overcome her underwritten part as mustachioed misfit Sally; and the particularly propulsive Colin Farrell, making the most of his time away from the corrupting Southern California sun as gloss-free street punk Lehiff. Set to the beat of a schizophrenic pop/rock soundtrack, Intermission's cornucopia of suburban amorality may not add up to much, but the performers make certain that it's never less than watchable. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide
Ger Ryan - Maura; Brian F. O'Byrne - Mick; Michael McElhatton - Sam; Deirdre O'Kane - Noeleen; David Wilmot - Oscar; Tom O'Sullivan - Ben; Owen Roe - Mr. Henderson; Taylor Molloy - Phillip; Jeff O'Toole; Laurence Kinlan - Dealer; Rory Keenan - Anthony; Darragh Kelly; Barbara Bergin - Karen
Credit
Susie Cullen - Art Director, John Erraught - Associate Producer, Romany Turner - Associate Producer, Susan Mullen - Associate Producer, Jina Jay - Casting, Lorna Mugan - Costume Designer, Tony Aherne - First Assistant Director, John Crowley - Director, Lucia Zucchetti - Editor, Paul Trijbits - Executive Producer, Tristan Whalley - Executive Producer, Jonathan Sehring - Executive Producer, Rod Stoneman - Executive Producer, Des Martin - Line Producer, John Murphy - Composer (Music Score), Tom Conroy - Production Designer, Ryszard Lenczewski - Cinematographer, Neil Jordan - Producer, Stephen Woolley - Producer, Alan Moloney - Producer, Brendan Deasy - Sound/Sound Designer, Tim Alban - Sound/Sound Designer, Mark O'Rowe - Screenwriter
Originally issued on LP in 1982 and reissued on CD in 1998, this 25-minute long EP will probably be sought out primarily by fans of the group, given its obscure provenance; it consists of prelude, intermission, and "recessional" music written to accompany The Mole Show, the traveling musical road show that the Residents put together in the early 1980s. The Mole Show was an adaptation based on a (still uncompleted) musical-dramatic trilogy depicting a race of mole people attempting to make its collective way in an unwelcoming world. But even though only fans are likely to know about this recording and seek it out, those who want a good, concise introduction to the band's unique musical worldview could do far worse than to start here. The five compositions on this program are not really in song form -- at times, particularly on the "recessional," the "New Hymn," the sound is almost a sort of ambient minimalism. But "Shorty's Lament" is nicely organized and beautifully performed, in a slightly creepy way. The same is true for the poignant, but somewhat more explicitly creepy, "Would We Be Alive?" Recommended. ~ Rick Anderson, All Music Guide
Intermission is a 2003motion picture directed by John Crowley which tells a story of a young couple and people surrounding them. The film is set in Dublin, Ireland and is filmed in a TV drama style with several story-lines crossing over one another during the course of the film.
John Crowley directed and Mark O’Rowe wrote the screenplay for this black comedy, set in Dublin, and shot in a documentary-like style, and starring a number of Irish actors (along with a few Scottish). Most notably Colin Farrell, now established as a star in Hollywood, plays a major role.
Like many of the characters seen in the movie, Lehiff (Farrell) has a talent for trouble with the law, hence he sings the song, “I Fought the Law” (written by Sonny Curtis), at the end of the movie. His character is therefore incomplete without doing something criminal, and, indeed, many, if not all, of the characters in the movie seem totally dysfunctional and as incomplete as he is, albeit in their differing ways.
Lehiff’s nemesis, Garda detective Jerry Lynch (Colm Meaney) feels incomplete without showing himself off as a man who constantly fights the "scumbags" on Dublin’s streets, and enlists the help of Ben Campion (Tomas O'Suilleabhain), an ambitious film-maker and the bane of his "go-softer" boss who considers Lynch too nasty a subject to be shown on a mainstream “docusoap” series on Irish terrestrial TV.
Ben is told to focus his attention on Sally (Shirley Henderson) who helped passengers after their double-decker bus spectacularly crashes on its side. Sally herself feels incomplete because of her 'Ronnie' (slang for 'moustache') and bitter because of her sister Deirdre (Kelly Macdonald) flaunting her new boyfriend, Sam (Michael McElhatton), a balding middle-aged bank manager who has left his wife of 14 years, Noeleen (Deirdre O'Kane), leaving her to question her own self-worth as a woman and wife.
Deirdre had been the girlfriend of John (Cillian Murphy), whose arch-nemesis is the overbearing supermarket manager Mr. Henderson (Owen Roe), who feels incomplete without feeling good about lording it over his “minions”. John feels utterly devastated and incomplete without Deirdre and will do anything to win her back - getting himself involved in an absurd plan: kidnap Sam, force him to go to his bank, and get ransom money. This plan involves Mick (Brían F. O'Byrne), the man who had driven the bus which crashed, and Lehiff. As might be expected, things go awry when Sam, who has the money, gets assaulted by an enraged Noeleen on the street, so Mick and John flee the scene without their money.
Mick feels incomplete without gaining his revenge on the boy, Philip (Taylor Molloy), who had lobbed the stone into the windshield, causing him to swerve and crash the bus he was driving (and for which he got fired). However, again things do not go quite his way, and he ends up learning a bitter lesson. As for Lehiff, Lynch, who feels incomplete without nailing him, corners him in an open field, and the scene is set for a confrontation that ends in a way nobody expects.
As the credits roll, Noeleen and Sam are in their house watching television obviously back together, with her bullying him into changing the channel by hand, as opposed to using the remote control.
Humour is an element that runs right throughout the movie as the characters have to sort out their otherwise incomplete lives as they have to deal with the harsh realities of being in love, out of love, in a job that one hates, suddenly out of a job, sticking a finger up at authority, taking the law into one’s own hands, each wanting a better deal in life than he or she can get at present. The main theme of the film is that of ordinary people being briefly jolted out of their ordinary lives, only to return to them later.
