THE MIRACLE CLUB
(12A) 91mins
★★★☆☆
AUTUMN is upon us, and along with the falling leaves and darker nights comes the desire to watch a gentle, comforting, well-acted British film.
And what would make you want to reach for a soft blanket and hot chocolate more than the multi-award winning Dame Maggie Smith, Kathy Bates and Laura Linney looking for a miracle in a windswept seaside town near Dublin?
It’s 1967 and Chrissie Ahearn (Linney) returns from Boston, US, to her Irish hometown for her estranged mother’s funeral.
On her arrival, she stops by the local hall where her mum’s friends Lily (Smith), Eileen (Bates) and Dolly (Agnes O’Casey) have won a talent contest, with the prize of a pilgrimage to Lourdes.
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The three women have beef with Chrissie for things that happened 20 years ago — and for abandoning their beloved best friend.
So, obviously, she decides to join the trip away at the last minute, making them all very uncomfortable.
All the women have their reasons for wanting to go to Lourdes in search of a miracle.
Dolly is hoping for her mute son to start talking, Eileen wishes to cure her breast cancer with holy water and Lily wants to ease the pain in her legs, as well as her never-ending heartache at the death of her son.
Chrissie, however, looks at Catholicism as a bitter joke, having endured her own problems with the church before she left for America.
So it is especially awkward when she has to share a room, and bed, with Lily, forcing them to talk about the elephant in the room that is their jaded history.
While Lourdes is presented as a bit of a tourist trap — with novelty tourist shops full of Virgin Mary souvenirs — it slowly has a restorative effect on the women, cleansing them of their individual “sins” and giving them the forgiveness they need to open up to each other.
Directed by Thaddeus O’Sullivan, this often far-too-gentle drama is lacking some extra charm and wit in the script.
Luckily, though, there’s enough star power with the three stellar actors in the leads to power it through to the end, with Smith still making her mark as one of our greatest.
So grab your hot water bottle, butter some toast and ease into this bland-but-sweet big screen blanket.
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SILVER DOLLAR ROAD
(PG) 100mins
★★☆☆☆
THERE’S no doubt that this documentary by award- winning director Raoul Peck is an interesting, and crucial, topic to expose on film.
Silver Dollar Road is a waterfront property in North Carolina that has been in the Reels family for generations.
We see pictures of the family living carefree, happy lives on the beaches and lakes, and hear seemingly endless accounts of how much they adored life there.
On his death-bed in 1962, the family patriarch said to his children: “Whatever you do, don’t let the white man take my land.”
But in an age-old scam, the Reels are being conned out of a large portion of their home by a devious relative and white land developers.
Peck’s film explores how the family fight to get the prime real estate back through the fog of system-atic racism, evictions and even time in prison, and delves into how it should never have been stolen in the first place.
While the tale is worth telling, the way it’s told is often lethargic, sometimes plain dull.
There are far too many talking head interviews and not enough archive footage to make it as interesting as the story itself.
SUMOTHERHOOD
(15) 97mins
★★★☆☆
TAKING a satirical stab at the urban crime genre, this British action comedy is entertaining, if simplistic.
It is directed by Adam Deacon, the 2012 Bafta Rising Star winner known mostly for his roles in the Kidulthood trilogy.
He also takes the lead of Riko opposite co-writer Jazzie Zonzolo as Kane.
They are two fast-talking but slow-thinking wannabe roadmen (gangsters) trying to scrounge a living in London.
When their calamitous efforts leave them with a debt of 15 grand, the duo embark on various missions to raise the funds.
These include attempting to rob rapper Lethal Bizzle and holding up a bank, but they end up in the crosshairs of two of London’s most dangerous firms.
The film’s attempts to represent mental health issues through Riko are somewhat misguided, but Deacon and Zonzolo’s high-energy, pop-culture-heavy script is frequently funny and pacy.
Filled with some hit-and- miss cameos (Ed Sheeran please stop acting), and a main cast delivering on the OTT tone, Sumotherhood isn’t changing the game, but is fun to play.
- BY HANNA FLINT
